Writing To Rory
by ZLizabeth
Summary: Rory and Jess have gone five years without each other. Miserable sums it up. But soon their paths will cross again, and this time maybe they both won't screw it up... to read go to chapters 15 and 16. Please look past that it's a Future and my First Fic!
1. Your Face Stares Out of The Caffeine

Writing To Rory   
By: Lizabeth  
  
Rated: PG since I have no idea what to rate it. Bad language, I think.  
  
Summary: Five years have passed since a certain Jess left Stars Hollow. Five years since he's been living in New York. Four years since Rory's dreams started to shatter. Okay, so I can't do summaries. My first fic, so please r/r and tell me if it stinks. Some spoilers for the S3 second episode, and for S2. But haven't we all seen that?  
  
Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Happy now?  
  
Author's Note: I don't like Gilmore Girls that much. I watch it, yes, but I don't like it. But I do think that it has the most possible material for a fic. So this is going to be the show I make my first fanfiction on. I will beg again for reviews. This story switches inbetween Jess and Rory.  
  
Your Face Stares Out Of The Caffeine  
  
~If there was to be a story about my life it would have to begin with a disclaimer. DISCLAIMER: My life isn't mine. It belongs to some idiot who can't write for his life. Or her life. Either way, the one who's controlling what's happening to me is some jackass that doesn't seem to want anything good to happen to me. It like he wants me to be one of those people in books that start off with people who won't ever amount to anything, and they have a dream to become more then what life has in store for them and all sorts of crap like that. Except I've been spared the crap. Come to think of it, I wouldn't at all mind crap every now and then. I've been living off reused lines for the past five years.  
I've always been messing up. Somewhere along the line I realized that it wasn't possible for someone to mess up this much and still be real. So I decided that I'm someone's puppet and they'd been giving me all the trash that's happened to me... and what I've done to myself.  
Disclaimer: My life isn't mine. I don't belong to me. I belong to someone else. Believe me, if this life was mine, I would've done some major plot changing.  
But of course it's not mine, and I keep on getting the same plots and meeting the same characters... oh, they're never the same but all that's ever really different is the hair color. I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time...  
I suppose my writers think that it's funny to have me like this. Wake up. Have a glass of orange juice. Attempt to live through the day. Oh, it must just wonderful having a puppet.  
I'm twenty-two and I'm living in an apartment building in Manhattan, New York. I'm twenty-two and my roommate is a forty-year-old woman who dies her hair blonde and pretends she's twenty. I'm twenty-two and all I drink is orange juice. I'm twenty-two and my life ended when I was three. I'm twenty-two and my life began when I was seventeen. Then ended a bit short of year later.  
I know what you're think, Pathetic. You try having a producer.  
  
Maybe I'm exaggarating. Maybe I am trying to come off as insane. But I am telling all the basic truths.  
You're a sensible person. You can take everything I've said and separate facts and fantasies, you can tone down until you reach the truth. So we'll skip over analyzing and explaining. We'll go straight to what's important. My life sucks. It really always has. My early years: tragic, sad. My preteen years: tragic, sad. My teen years: tragic, sad. That explains everything you need to know.   
  
I had lived in New York City for as long as I could remember. I have no idea if I was born there, as I could never press my parents for details. When I was seventeen, I guess my mom got fed up with me. Sometimes I can tell myself that she did it because she didn't want me to turn out like she did. But only at night. At night my shell melts away. But during the day I'm sure that she just wanted to get rid of me.  
One morning I woke up and my mom said to me, "pack."   
I packed.  
She took me to the bus and then told me where I was going, "you're going to live in Stars Hollow with your uncle."  
Then she gave me a hug - she didn't hug much and this one wasn't great - and left. But I'm not retelling the story of my life here. This little thing is purely for me, and I pretty much know all the nitty-gritty details that most autobiographies so love to draw out and emphasize.  
Talking about Stars Hollow is not something I do under normal circumstances. It's not painful.... The best year of my life, yes. Made that by Rory Gilmore.   
I loved Rory.  
Since this is none of your buisness and if you're reading this you really shouldn't be, as I've written this for no one, I won't elaborate. Let's just say things didn't work out.~  
  
"Jess!" He spun around and saw her. Her eyes were shining and he almost opened his arms. But he couldn't do that.  
"Hey."   
"I need to talk to you," the light was bouncing off her eyes. They were filled with tears.  
"Sure."  
"Why are you..." she swallowed. Each time the flourensent bulbs lit up those sapphire's and he saw the tears, he hated himself. Why did he do this? She didn't deserve it, Rory didn't deserve anything bad, "why are you with Shane?"  
"I think you mean, 'why didn't I sit around and mope for six weeks, just waiting for a girl who kissed me and ran off?" he was mad now, and the voice that had begged him to take Rory in his arms and kiss her was rapidly decreasing it's volume, "the girl who, even though I'd made it clear that I liked, had told me in her own little innocent ways that she loved some idiot? Some idiot who didn't even have a reason to be with her? Who'd made it clear she wanted not me, but Dean," he was dropping subtleties... not like there was any use for them, "I'm not Dean, Rory, and that's why you liked me. So I'm not going to act like him and sit around with no life until my sweet Rory returns. You didn't write. You didn't tell me you were leaving. You kissed Dean in front of me right after you kissed me. Doesn't give me the best reasons to be with you. To wait around."  
"It wasn't a real kiss, Jess. It was a 'hey, hi,' how did you I didn't break up with him? You could've called me."  
"I didn't know that you were supposed to be my top priority."  
"Maybe I'm playing hard to get!"   
"You've been playing hard to get with me for about eight months! I figured you wanted me to back off. Oh, speaking of backing off, by the way, aren't you still with Dean?"  
"Maybe I don't want to be with you anymore!"  
"You know this isn't about us! It's about Dean! Are you still with him," suddenly he stopped talking. Her mouth was opening and closing. His tone softer, he took her by the shoulders and looked straight at her, "are you?"  
She stared down at the floor and then manadged a grin through her heavy flowing tears, "if I wasn't," she whispered, "would you like to go out sometime?"  
"Rory, are you?"  
She leaned against the shelf and rested her forehead against the cheap metal, "yes."  
He dropped her shoulders and stopped the intense stare, "great."  
She looked up and her pink lips parted, but he turned and stormed out of the store, recieved an annoyed call from Taylor about slamming doors. All he could hear was his own stupidity pounding in his ears, never should've moved back, never should've moved back....  
  
Alright, so once the pen gets going, it's hard to stop writing. I've told you, oh reader who will never be, far more than you need to know.  
Rory and I were perfect for each other. We both loved to read... and we had tastes that were similar enough and different enough that we had the most glorious debates and discussions. Rory was the first one I could ever talk to. Rory was the only one who looked past that I outlined "dead" bodies in chalk, that I stole donations from little boxes. That I took a gnome. And Rory made me want to stop stealing, stop being a 'bad boy'. Actually, Rory made me want to do about anything that would make me more desirable in her eyes. That is why I took the things, I know. All I wanted was her.   
But she had a boyfriend.  
So? was all I really thought of that until she made it all clear to me that we were just friends.  
I wanted much more than that.  
And then when she kissed me, what did I do? Find myself a making-out partner. Not even a girlfriend. Just a sleezy un-Stars Hollow-ish type. Why? I don't know. Ask my writers. They're the ones who snatched the Rory character and put her in Washington. Were they trying to test me then?  
Well, I failed the test.  
After the fight, Rory made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. I manadged to live a month without her and then left.   
Sometimes I think about what happened to her. She probably went to Harvard and now has a nice boyfriend who can stand Ann Raynd. Who waits outside her classes every day to escort her to her dorm. Kisses her goodnight, doesn't sneak into her room, is liked by everybody. Sort a version of her old boyfriend with a brain this time.  
It's no good wondering. She deserves the good life she no doubt has, and I deserve my roommate. I deserve everything I've gotten.  
But if I knew that if I was the perfect little twenty-two year old they would write Rory back in, believe me, the very tone of my voice would be sickly sweet.~  
  
Jess walked into his apartament. June was sitting in his reading chair. Ignoring the woman he sat down on top of her and began to read, scribbling notes every now and then.br "So, sweetie, how was work?"  
He underlined a word.   
"Where do you work again?"  
He circled this paragraph.  
"Jess, do you want me to get up?"   
"You think?" he mumbled, still not tearing his eyes from the page.  
"Okay honey."  
He rolled off her lap onto the chair as she stood up. She cast him a patronizing look he ignored, "Jess, I need your opinion on something."  
"Work was fine, I work at Strictly Coffee and," he glanced up before dropping his eyes back to the world of Hemmingway, "you need to redye your hair."  
She nervously primped it, "do you really think so?"   
He got up and walked into his room, slamming the door.   
So was his life.  
  
Rory,   
It's amazing how much you can miss someone that you love... even after five years. Of course I miss and regret what I did every day. Of course you probably regret ever kissing me in the first place and being unfaithful to your dear bag boy, so there's really no point in sending this. I'm not going to.   
Every day I have my little things to remind me of you. Strictly Coffee has that aroma that so enticed you and brought you to Luke's diner every day. With every cup I fill I think of your face. Ah, yes, this is Rory love poetry. What should I call it? Your Face Stares Out Of The Caffeine?   
Today June tried to act like a mother again. Caring wasn't one of the things my mom did best, so I'm not sure June's doing it right. Maybe you could tell me how Lorelai does it.  
My life is pretty much as bitter as that coffee stuff you love so much. Do you know that all I drink is orange juice? My life has been pathetic since you left it. But you know that.  
- Jess  
  
He gave the paper a faint smile and put it in the Rory Pile. He'd been writing letters to her for four years now. The Rory Pile was a big box by now. He adressed each letter to where she used to live. He almost laughed as he thought of what might happen if Lorelai read all these letters.   
Between pouring coffee, his joke autobiography, and writing letters to Rory he would never send, his life was reading. Books had always been there for him. They were there now. But even books didn't hold all the comfort they used to. With each word he was forced to think of Rory.   
He never really new if he loved thinking of her bent over a book, only a few strands of hair falling into her face... or couldn't stand it.  
And though he told himself every day and he knew that life without Rory Gilmore was pathetic, worthless, and pointless for him, he never let himself say that he missed her.   
That would really be to much of saying that it was his fault she was gone.   
And he had to blame that on the producers of his life.  
  
Miles and miles away, she was washing dishes.  
  
****So, how'd you like it? Was it promising? Feel free to tell me THE BITTER TRUTH. I can handle it! But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review! 


	2. 700 Dishes To Her Name

700 Dishes To Her Name  
  
Disclaimer: Okay, it's not mine. Do I have to put that on every chapter?  
  
"I'm home!"   
Not even a Rory darling, she thought, scrubbing the white china so hard she was sure it would break. Let it break. I hope it breaks.   
"Hey! Ror!" her husband entered. She flashed him a smile then went back to the dishes. He came over and kissed her lightly before she shoved him away.  
"I'm doing the dishes."  
"I can see that Rory. Just because your the smart Harvard girl, doesn't mean I'm just plain old stupid."   
"You don't have to rub it in about Harvard."  
"What? You went for a year, didn't you?"  
"Sure I did. Before that little event, that is. Or didn't you hear? I stayed there for a year before I left."  
"Rory..." the man collapsed into one of their few chairs, "please not n..."   
"That's right. I decided I wanted something closer to home. So didn't I go to Yale? And didn't something prevent me..."  
"Rory, no. No. No."  
"Dean, I've put everything on the line for you. I moved to California with you because you said that you'd have something for me here. I've been with you since I was sixteen! Don't you think that's pathetic? I've never had another boyfriend! I've made all sorts of sacrifices for you. I decided to settle for an education here when I've wanted all my life to go to a big, booming, promising school. Why did I do that? Why do I even put up with you? I'm living in California washing dishes!"   
"Rory, we have this fight once a week. I think I'll just..."   
"Fine!" she shouted and grabbed her coat before running out the door.  
The California summer was fading away. The air was finally becoming more brisk, and the sharp wind was comforting in her usual depressed state. She made this trip at least five teams a week, and she could've walked to her spot with nothing to guide her but her nose if she had to.  
The spot was far away from her.... house. Nothing would ever make her call that place home. If she wandered across the street, followed a path into the woods behind the rows of houses and walked for ten minutes she got there.   
The leaves were changing color. She could never decide whether she liked it best when it was in full springtime, or when the leaves above her were this palette of fall colors.   
Sitting down on the log and leaning against a tree, she began to cry. If you wanted misery, her spot was perfect. The crisp air could nip at your tears and freeze them on your cheeks. It would make crying ten times more terrible.   
Rory was one of those people who got a little comfort out of crying. Crying was an art to be done in it's full glory only when she was alone, and it was the friend that said, "yes, your life is terrible and I do feel so very sorry for you."   
Before California, she had been able to cry a lot. It hadn't been her only friend. But she had gone with Dean, accepted when he proposed to her when she was only twenty, and gone to live with him... live with him in this big place, lonely for all it's people. She missed Stars Hollow every day. She blamed Dean for everything, and she wasn't afraid to tell him that. But she was afraid to leave him.   
Rory wiped away tears and thought of the girl she'd thought she was going to become. Chasing stories through crowded streets, through deserts, through gunfire. Fearless and famous.  
How different from that was she now? So different she was convinced now that she was far from fearless. She could never be brave. She was even below timid. There was nothing for her 'out there'. And that's why she couldn't leave Dean.  
Why couldn't she go home?   
Being away from Stars Hollow, from her mother and from Luke and Lane and even Taylor and Kirk, she missed Miss Patty and Babette. She missed the porcelin unicorns.  
She had left home so confident. She had told everyone that she was going to come back to the little people one day and still remember them. She would give them all credit in her speeches (brodcasted on every channel in every language). Of courseshe'd been joking. But when she'd recieved those, "you go do that, Rory" looks, it had made her want to do it so badly. She wasn't a little girl getting mixed up in "the world" and falling for the "bad boy".   
Her life was fighting with the husband she didn't love, and she felt that this was around the time that she (the heroine) found a window of oppurtunity in the sky and jumped through it. Or when that special someone comes to town and changes anything. But she had jumped out of her window a while ago. And closed it behind her.  
So she couldn't go home with less than what she left with. That and about seven hundred dishes to her name.  
  
She sat there for a while, just thinking about her life. Or moping. The two were pratically inseprable in her mind. She closed her eyes and breathed out deeply, hoping to see her breath fall out in clouds of steam. But it wasn't cold enough for that yet.   
She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a book. Howl. She opened it up and began to read. Reading. The only thing that hadn't changed.  
  
****Sorry this one was kind of short. Oh please please please please please review, my darling people! 


	3. What Makes The Muskrat Guard His Musk?

What Makes The Muskrat Guard His Musk?  
  
Thanks for you reviews!!!!!!  
  
  
Disclaimer: Now, if this show was mine, do you *really* think I'd been typing away on my computer and posting on FF.net when I could be actually writing episodes? Hmm...   
  
Author's Note: And "Edipus Complex" is a Greek term for wanting to marry your mother. It comes from King Edipus who married his mother (and killed his father) without knowing it.  
  
"You know what you need, Jess?"  
One.  
"You need to make some friends. Get out there. You know, out in the world. You and I could go out together. I could hook you up with one of my friends and maybe you could bring some boy along..."  
"June, I don't think that I need a date with a sixty-year-old right now. In fact, I'm going to totally gush my heart out my little poor and misunderstood heart out right now and tell you what I need."  
His roommate sat down in a chair across from him, "yes, Jessie?"  
"I need a fingernail clipper."  
The creases of 'worry' on June's face didn't vanish, "well, I've got one. Sweetie?"  
Two.  
His hand dropped to the coffee table where he grabbed a book and opened it up. Didn't really matter what page. He'd read it about forty times.  
"Or, you know, you should get an email adress. I met some of the greatest guys online."  
Three.  
"Gee, I wonder why?" he said aloud, not bothering to look up. June's mock concern in him was completley related to the fact that he was the perfect age to be a dating canidate for one of her friends. Personally, June's way of "chasing after" him wasn't among those top way to get a person to want to go out with you. After all, who in this world has an Edipus complex?  
June looked at him and stared hard until his eyes flicked up. She then shook her head slowly and deliberatley and sniffed (loudly) before walking out the door.  
Oh dear. He was ridden with guilt.  
  
~Rory,  
Right now I'm so very torn. Would it be unfaithful to you to date a forty year old platinum blonde right now? June's given me an offer that's so hard to refuse. A romantic candelight dinner at the oldfolks home.... but you know how very devoted I am to you....~  
  
Cynical. That's how Jess felt right now. Cyncial.  
  
~ How is dear Bag Boy? Or how was he before you jumped in your brand new car and drove off into the wild blue yonder. Forgot all about everyone... me, him, though, for your sake, it might be better that his image is forever erased from your memory.   
Sometimes I actually work out "what-if" scenario's in my head and imagine what might have happened if I dumped Shane while I had the chance. I've forgotten what happened to her. See, Rory, that's how unimportant she was to me. Yet that's exactly why she was so *very* important. It was the little things that kept up us apart. And the little things added up to the big thing. What keeps the Rory and the Jess apart? So said the cowardly lion "what makes the muskrat guard his musk?". That was courage.  
What keeps the Rory and the Jess apart?   
Pride.  
It would be such a cliche, reused and time-honored theme that seperated us two bookworms. Maybe we were to much alike, contrary to public opinion. Of course, the one similarity they saw between us was reading. That was the one huge difference I saw. Some of the author's you read made me sick, and still those smalltown people saw us as the same under the book category.  
We were such a regular little couple. Seperated by hate between our families... or Lorelai. When she's angry, she can fill up the space of all Juliet's little Capulet clan's rage. From such different cultures... yes, Rory darling, they'll write a novel about our timeless love. Except it'll be a tradegey because I end up getting shot by a drunk homeless man and you end up a cold, hard, rich, buisnesswoman. And then Disney will buy it and change the ending.  
June is knocking on my door. She's saying something about spare keys. Right. Did I tell you about that? I'll let you know, in case I haven't already tooted my own grimy horn enough, that it takes a lot of skill to find out where *every single* tennant keeps their spare key. This isn't Stars Hollow where all the spare keys are kept in the gnome's pipe. My glorious collection of metal unlockers is resting on my desk next to the Rory Box.   
I know what you're thinking. Maybe you had yourself convinced that my "outrageous" crimes in Sleepytown were just to keep me amused. And they were. And you're thinking "in such a great place like New York City, how can he be bored," trust me dearling, it's not really all that.~  
  
"JESS MARIANO!!!!" loud loud loud. He spun around in his swivel chair. Even the swivel chair reminded him of Rory. He could just imagine her soft hair spinning and whipping the air as she gave herself up to that childish urge to spin.  
"Yes Mother?" he called in an overly sweet voice.  
"UNLOCK THIS DOOR."  
"Well, I would, but I've lost my key. In fact I went all around the building yesterday looking for it. I've found a few and I'm trying all of them, but so far, none have worked."  
"JESS M-"  
He got up and unlocked the door then sat down to watch the one-woman scene.   
June walked in, her hair hanging limp around her powdered face. She strode to his shoe box and had a bit of trouble with it. Once it was cradled in her arms she shot him a look and stomped out the door.  
"And I thought people were supposed to grow out of the temper tantrum stage at fifty. Guess I was wrong," he actually didn't mean for her to hear that one. But her ear-shattering shreik was heard, so he guessed she did.  
  
~ When they finally give me lifetime in prison for disrespecting my elder's, Rory, I want you to come down and give me a big lecture. You're so cute when you lose your temper. And once you're done screaming I'll kiss your tight-lipped mouth. You'll just stare with your mouth part open. I'll widen my eyes and lean back against my cell wall. You'll slap my bail money (which you'll have plenty of by then) on the desk and storm out.   
But it would be worth seeing you again. Maybe that's why I'm verging on being a criminal. My picture in the paper... you might still care a little bit, so you'd come.  
You don't know how much it would mean to me to~  
  
Jess stared in horror at what he'd written. As if Rory was reading over his shoulder, he crossed it out as fast as he could.   
What the hell was he thinking. He couldn't even say he missed her.   
But these were never going to be sent....  
He rolled his eyes as the fated argument began again.  
He was surprised who won.   
Once again glanced around the room and then covered the paper with his hand as he rewrote the line and finished the sentence.   
  
June was paiting her nails when Jess came out of his room holding a stack of dollar bills. Dropping them on the coffee table he didn't even look as he kept walking towards the door. She noticed a bag slung across his shoulder.  
"Jess?" she called, "where are you going?"  
"That's next month's rent," he still didn't look back, "I'm going to Rory."  
The door swung shut behind me. June sighed and turned back to her nails. Yet another little boy she'd scared away. But this one's excuse was the worst.  
She dipped the brush in the tiny glass bottle, "who the hell does he expect me to think Rory is?"  
  
****PLEASE TELL ME HOW IT WAS!!!!!! If it was really that terrible, please tell me! But if you liked it, you don't understand how great it'll be to hear it from you! 


	4. Notes On A Coffee Cup

Notes On A Coffee Cup  
  
Disclaimer: No, this isn't mine.  
  
Author's Note: Salsville is not an actual town in California. At least, not to my knowledge.... And thanks everyone for the reviews!  
  
Rory was sitting in her other place. It was strange how much you could hate a town and still have so many spots in it that were dear to you, that you loved to escape to.   
"Rory, hi. The usual?"   
"Hey Diana. Yes, please," Starbucks. Of course. Coffee would always have a place in her heart. She took a piece of paper out of her bag and began to write on it.   
The Starbucks of her town was a restaurant style coffee house with a one page menu that mostly consisted of the different and bizarre flavored coffee's they served. The waitress returned with a steaming mochachino. She glanced down at the yellow pad, "what are you writing Ror?"  
The young woman hurriedly stashed her work and gave Diana an embarrassed smile, "nothing."   
Only waitressing manners prevented the high school girl from poking her nose further into things, "if you say so, ma'am," the title was overly stressed and the girl even gave her customer a mock curtsy to accent her opinion on the secrecy.   
Secrecy and hostility were the main players in making this town such an unfriendly place. Almost everyone, even those who had never left Salsville were convinced that they were secret agents and were absolutely forbid to consort with any of the little folk of the town. Since a decent portion of the place's population were also sure that they were not allowed to reveal their identities they did not exactly make friends with other's of "their kind".   
The place was so peculiar and tiny that Rory, upon first arriving, had actually thought she might like it in it's similarity to Stars Hollow. But the inhabitants were far from welcoming.  
She thought maybe she needed to live here for a while. Let them get used to her. But she was from a place they'd never heard of. And therefore she was unworthy of anything. She wasn't rich, and she was boring.  
Lifting up her styrofoam coffee cup she took a sip and almost spit it out. You couldn't blame the town for it's coffee.  
  
Still, she couldn't help but think of how much Luke's coffee had said about Stars Hollow. And what did this stuff say about Salsville?   
Cheap cup. Cheap coffee. Cheap place.   
She would never get used to any of them.  
  
"Rory!" Dean put on a fake smile, "It's so nice to see you back! Where were you all day?"   
"I went to get some coffee," his face fell.  
"I made you some," Rory kept herself from grimacing. Dean tried. Trying was the only good trait he had... or tried to have.   
"Always room for more!" she said brightly and followed him into the kitchen.   
He presented her with a mug of cold brown liquid. This wasn't even an apology. Dean always liked to pretend that their fights just went away. His logic was 'Rory comes home, that means she's forgiven me.' She and Dean never even had a moment where they stared at each other and gave a nod to apologize... and accept the other's apology.  
The coffee was worse than what she'd had earlier. Dean had already begun to pour himself some. She smiled when she saw his face. Dean did not have a very high coffee tolerance. She could only imagine what this tasted like to him.  
She got up and dumped hers in the sink. Then she turned away and left the house before she could see the look in his face.  
Dean really didn't have any personality beyond pretending to still love her and taking offense at everything she did. Ridding herself of his poor excuse for coffee would only be considered - by him- an action of pure hate on her part.  
  
  
~Rory entered Luke's. She knew by now where the key was hidden. The diner was empty and dark. She sat down at a table and waited. Lorelai didn't know she was here. She didn't need to tell anyone she was here. This was her business alone.  
And then he came downstairs. A box labeled "books" was cradled in his arms. He saw her and set it down.  
"Hi Jess."   
He gave her a nod and started upstairs.  
"Wait!" she called, jumping up and running to him, "aren't you going to say anything."   
"Wasn't planning on it."  
"I came to see you."   
"Rory, you could try making your own coffee sometime."  
"Jess! I don't want coffee, I want to talk to you!"  
He stared at her for a few seconds. Then he went behind the counter and began to prepare coffee.  
"So, why do you have your books down here?"   
"These are only a few. I was going to drop them off at your house," she smiled. So she had been forgiven. Waiting until he was in front of her, she leaned forward to kiss him. He walked away.  
"Jess? You did break up with Shane, didn't you?"  
"Yea. Did you break up with Dean?"   
She smiled, "I told him it was to hard. He said fine, but once I'd realized that I was wrong, he'd be waiting."   
"Hmm. So now you need someone new and I'm closest?"  
She couldn't believe this. Wasn't this what they both wanted? "Jess, you know perfectly well that I really, really..." he interrupted her before she could go on.  
"Don't you want to know why I broke up with Shane?"  
Rory smiled again and leaned closer to him, "because you couldn't stand to be without me?" she teased.  
"No. I'm going back home."  
He was joking, of course. She rolled her eyes, "again?"  
He stared at her once more and the her smile fled, "aren't you home here?" she was whispering. Confused.  
"Nope. The books are a gift to you. You were the only decent thing in this place."  
Rory tried again to kiss him. And succeeded this time, "that's my going away present to you, Mr. Mariano."   
He turned around and poured out the coffee, "it'll do."   
What was this? Wasn't there supposed to be love in the air by now? Where was the music, the zooming out on the happy couple as they at last joined together in the ending kiss? A perfect kiss free of boyfriend worries, free of everything. There were supposed to be in love by now, "Jess, you can't..."  
"Luke has all the rest of my stuff at the bus station. Bye Rory." He was at the door. She wasn't going to let him get away again.  
"Are you leaving because of me? Are you still mad at me? Jess, just give me a chance I'll..."  
"Rory, you were the reason I came back. Just let yourself think of that tonight."  
He walked out the door, leaving Rory at the counter. She stared at where he had been standing just moments ago. Lifeless, she took a sip of coffee. It should've been delicious. It should've comforted her. Instead it tasted bitter on her mouth. She had the strongest urge to spit it at him... if only he was there to be spit on.   
Her eyes fell on the box of books. Unsure of what to do, she went over to them and kneeled down, taking out some of the worn paperbacks. Putting her head down on the box, she closed her eyes and cried.   
Luke came into the diner later that night after seeing Jess off. He found Rory asleep. When she woke up even later, she was in her bed.   
She spent the rest of the night crying. Lorelai let her skip school the next day without needing to ask why. News traveled fast in Stars Hollow.~  
  
  
"Rory!" the twenty-two year old look up to see her only Salsville friend rushing towards her.   
"Hey Hannah," there was a styrofoam coffee cup in her left hand and a pen in her right hand. Blue ink was scribbled and smudged all over the cup.  
"Inspiration catch you off guard again?" her friend asked with a head jerk to the cup when she caught up to Rory.   
"I wasn't totally unprepared this time. Trusty ole' Pete the Pen was with me."  
"Well, you can stop trying to cover your writing with your little fingers. I've long since stopped trying to read it."  
Rory cautiously removed her hand and Hannah eye's immediately flew to the unprotected writing. Hannah looked at Rory and smiled, "it's instinct," Rory's frown caused her friend a laugh, "don't worry. It's so smudged it's illegible anyway."  
The two walked in silence. Hannah turned to Rory and suddenly asked, "did you and Dean have a fight today?"  
"I would normally compliment you on skills of observation. But we've been fighting so much lately..." Rory looked down at the concrete. Hannah regretted bringing it up.  
"Rory?" she asked again, trying to change subjects. She hated seeing Rory sad, and she hated this stupid place and the idiots in it for making Rory so unhappy.  
"Yes?"   
"What do you write on those coffee cups?"  
"Memories."  
"You never talk about your life before you came here. Why do you write about it?"  
"Because I miss it so much. And if I write it down, it's easier to believe that it's not mine," Hannah raised an eyebrow, "it's like reading a novel," Rory explained, "you know that it's all not real and that's makes it easier to stop longing for it. It's easier to see once you put it in print that it was to perfect to last."  
Hannah put her arm around her the small woman, "Rory, what made you desert Stars Hollow?"  
Rory sighed, "me."  
The other girl gave her a half-hug and kissed the top of her head, "come on, no one will know. You'll feel better if you have a scapegoat. Whose fault was it really?"  
"Rory Gilmore."  
"Honey, that's you."  
Rory looked up at her for a second then turned her eyes to the woods, "not anymore."  
  
***** How did you like it? Please please please R&R 


	5. It's Better Than Drinking Alone

It's Better Then Drinking Alone  
  
  
  
  
"Hey, mister. Can I get you something?"  
"A ride to Conneticut?"  
"Can't help you there."  
Jess shrugged and waved his hand to one of the beers.  
"Polite, aren't you?" the bartender asked, grabbing it off the shelf for him.  
"So, Conneticut, what are you doing here?"   
These bar people seemed to have that idea of a Cheers bar fixed in their heads. Free drinks, open hearts, a little we-have-no-lives-drinking club... lovely little picture. Not his kind of thing. He shrugged again.   
"Just saying, I don't see any reason for you to be here. In Monitcello."  
"I'm not exactly a native."  
"It's obvious."  
Shrug. He switched shoulders this time. The waitress plopped down next to him, "so, you speak with limbs only?"  
"I'm fluent in it."  
"Well, English ain't your first language, obviously."  
She even was striking up two-second poses. Instictively, he looked around for a camera.  
"No, that would have to be Manhattan," a heavily lip-sticked woman said, eyes narrowed, lips tight, a perfect face of drunk analyzation.  
"Oh, a city kid!" Regular-With-Beer-Glued-to-Hand commented.  
"I've never been to the city."  
The conversation switched from him to grafitti, piegons, rats and pollution and he was left alone to drink. Until the Bar Rats remembered the stranger in their midst.   
"Why are you going to Conneticut?"  
"Chasing after the girl I love." They took his reply mildly, as if it happened all the time in their little television land.  
"Why don't you take a bus? I know you can get from the City to almost anywhere, with a few transfers...."  
"I have no money."  
"Who does?" Mr. Regular nodded to himself, "who does? Hey mister! Another two beers... on him!" the selection was random. It didn't seem to matter. Grumbling, the victim threw money on the counter and turned back to his laptop.   
His breath heavy and thick with drink, Regular leaned over to Jess and stage-whispered in his ear, "we like to pick on the buisness guys. Make them think they fit in and then drain for cash" Buisness Guy scowled as the harsh voice carried across the room.   
Jess raised the bottle to his lips. A woman with a hopefully fake bird on her head had just entered and was screaming the "latest". If you took Stars Hollow and saturated it in achohol, this would be it.  
He glanced around and noticed a girl - maybe fourteen years old, sitting in the corner reading her book as the man with her... probably her father, fixed his eyes on the football game.  
He tilted his head to get a better look at the book but recieved a warning glance from her father.   
God, he missed Rory.   
But he was going to find her now, and that was all that was important.  
  
He was up to his elbows in dishwater. The owner of the motel came in and smiled at the stack of clean dishes.  
"Nice job."  
"That's what you're not paying me for."  
"I hope you'll like the room you're getting."  
"So long as there aren't enough cockaroaches to chew down and collapse the cheap bed I'm sleeping in, I'll be fine."  
"Not very confident in my motel, are you?"  
"The outside doesn't give the best impression."  
"My mother, Anna Sr., did the decorating," she said with a sigh. He nodded, as if it explained everything.   
"So, are you done yet?"  
He spun the last dish onto the pile, "yep. Can I go to bed now?"  
"Only after you finish making the french toast for tommorow."  
"You serve your french toast cold?"   
"It'll be our little secret."   
"Remind me not to get breakfast here tomorrow."  
"Just because it's reheated? Like you've never been broke," Anna defended her motel quickly, "and let me tell you, what I don't put in on food, I put in on good, reliable, microwave ovens."  
He broke the final egg and handed her the two bowls, "mix, stir, soak bread, cook, flip, done."  
"What?"  
He was already asleep by the time she came into his room, covered in flour and asking if he could please make another batch.  
  
"Mariano! Over here!" Jess glanced around the motel and spotted his ride.  
"Hey," he dropped his bag into the open trunk before getting in to the car.   
They drove the first few miles without saying a word, Jess with his nose in a book, Sam with his eyes on the road. At last Sam sighed, as if he had been fighting the urge to say this for the last hour.  
"So, how'd you screw up?"  
"Excuse me?" Jess looked up.  
"Hardly anyone ever gets out of Stars Hollow. If you did, you wouldn't have to hitch a ride with me to come back. So you must've screwed up. Like me."  
"Well, I hadn't figured that out about you yet," Jess knew that he and this man had something in common. Or else he wouldn't have agreed to take Jess with him back to Stars Hollow. They met in the motel that morning and they had discovered they both could trace back to Stars Hollow and wanted to return. And they had known that the other had a similar reason for leaving. Neither pryed any further. But now Sam had given out to his pure human curiousity.  
"Guess it's kind of obvious, now that I'm taking renters?" Sam gave a soft snort and his eyes hardened, "seriously, though, I didn't know Stars Hollow had to many screw-ups."  
"The whole town is a screw-up."  
"So you must've done something pretty bad to be counted... bad."  
Jess didn't look at him when he answered. Instead he looked out the window, "didn't you?"  
"Worst part is, I don't have anyone to blame it on."  
"Join the club."  
"Anyone but me."  
"Join the club."  
Another cloud of quietude descended on them. It took awhile for Sam to speak again.  
"When did you leave?"  
"Five years ago."  
"That would explain why I don't know you. Ten."  
"Oh."  
"Yea. Let me tell you, spending ten years hating yourself is not the most pleasant in the selection of futures. Remember this, Mariano, you choose for yourself. No one chooses for you."  
"Yes sir."  
Sam reddened, "sorry."  
"Well, if I hadn't come to my senses about Rory, I would probably have had just that fate."  
"Rory Gilmore? The nice little girl who seemed to be joined at the hip with her mother?"   
"Lorelai," he almost smiled. His memories of Lorelai were pratically welcome memories. She was so much like Rory.   
But no one could ever be Rory.  
"So how are they?" Sam asked. Jess could see where this was going. He decided to play along with the small talk.  
"I don't know. Last I saw, Rory had high hopes for Harvard and Lorelai was in a constant flirting match with my uncle."   
"Luke Danes?"  
"So their relationship's famous?"  
"It's a little town."  
The silences were getting less uncomfortable.  
"Is Taylor still there?"  
"Yea."  
"That man is going to live forever. I remember when I was a kid and he caught me skipping across the street, the next town meeting was about how children's discipline needed to be stronger."  
"Well, at least I didn't keep him bored," Jess said, then stopped.  
Sam glanced at him and a slow smile crept across his face, "oh, come on. Tell me your Taylor pranks!"  
Jess sighed and suddenly longed for orange juice, "one time I drew an outline of a body outside his market and put police tape around it."  
"I'm surprised the local boys didn't worship you."  
"There's just something pretty hateable about me, I guess."  
Quiet. Hush. Lull.   
  
"So are you going to tell me what happened?" Sam had finally cut to the chase. Jess' eyes flicked over to him for a second before he responded.  
"Nope."  
"I wasn't really ready to tell you mine, either," his driver admitted.   
  
"Do you want something to drink?" Jess' hand was in his backpack.  
"I might have lived in Stars Hollow where all types and forms of achohol were non-existent but I still know the laws of the outside world, and they seem to imply..."  
"No, I have two pints of Tropicana Orange Juice."  
"Orange juice?"  
Jess looked over at him and shook the pint, trying to make it appear more appetizing. His companion snatched it and opened it deftly, taking a long gulp before setting it on the dashboard.  
"I see we're not foreign to opening Orange Juice containers," Jess said in the lightest form of drawl/Jess-teasing.  
"Hey, when I was a kid, my mom made me open my own milk."  
Sam seemed ready for Jess to share a similar memory. He simply took a sip of his own identical beverage.   
A silence settled over the two of them. It wasn't awkward, it wasn't anything. The two stood on common ground. That was enough in a friendship for Jess. These days, he hardly found enough people he could stand being around for five minutes.   
Sam flipped on the radio and the song came on in the middle.  
  
  
And they're sharing a drink,  
They call lonliness,  
But it's better then drinking alone.  
  
Sing us a song, you're the piano man,  
Sing us a song tonight,  
We're all in the mood for a melody,  
And you've got us feeling alright.  
  
  
****The song at the end is some old song by Billy Joel. I don't own it! Isn't that news! Sorry this chapter was so bad. And sorry it took me so long to update. But please R/R and I promise it will get better!   
And sorry it's mostly dialouge. GOOD NEWS! I've finally taken all the html tags out of the first chapter. Sorry about my bad spelling and all the mistakes, though. 


	6. Ms Gilmore of Salsville, California

Ms. Gilmore of Salsville, California  
By ZLizabeth  
READ AUTHOR'S NOTE! READ DISCLAIMER!  
  
Disclaimer: You've read the other chapters. I have admitted it five times already. Yes, Marla Campun is fake. She writes books about what she sees as "the perfect life" and why it never works out: no one wants the perfect life. I OWN HER!!!   
  
Author's Note: Eek. How long has it been since I updated? *shivers* Well, please forgive me, my dear readers. I went away for the weekend as was without FF.net for FOUR WHOLE DAYS! And then I came back and BAM, school is upon me. I LOVE GRAPHING CALCULATORS!!! So, once again, I'm sorry. And I hope you like this chapter. Oh, and what's Dean's last name again? I got this from some fanfic where reviewers corrected a person and said his name was Hart or something... WARNING: This chapter is mostly about Rory's life in Salsville.   
  
Also, I apologize for my sloppy spelling, grammar mistakes, etc. I'm left-handed, meaning that I CAN'T EDIT my own work. So if I could have a proof reader... if you want to volunteer, just say so in your review. And if YOU need a proof reader, I'd do it for you also. I can speel veeery weel and wod luv 2 do itt. (a pathetic attempt at humor there). Please put your email address in.  
  
  
The squirrel was being watched.  
Had the furry rodent known, it couldn't have cared less. The bright blue eyes that were taking in every crinkle of nose never blinked, but the squirrel was far from flattered. It went on chewing.   
It's watcher mimicked the action.   
At last the object of her attentions looked up and stared at her and sat quite still. It wasn't afraid, that much was obvious. It did, however, look rather perturbed that this big, hairless lump was trying to familiarize itself with the squirrel's own stashes of nuts. It dropped it's nut before scurrying off, perhaps hoping that the creature would be distracted by the acorn, giving the squirrel time to get back to it's storage tree without the hideous giant seeing.   
The Hairless Lump (actually very beautiful by it's own species standards) folded her legs beneath her in the most graceful form and put a few slim fingers over the acorn. She gingerly let her hand enclose around it before dropping it in the pocket of her faded blue coat.   
The rock on which she had sat crouched on for an hour, just watching the squirrel, had left it's own pebbled indentations in her blue jeans. She smoothed out the wrinkles as best she could before tightening her periwinkle scarf and gathering her hair in the respectful bun it was usually kept in these days.   
The squirrel had invaded her spot two days ago. Every day so far it had come dash around the clearing, collect what nuts had fallen, then make it's escape after it was enough irritated by Rory's open and rude staring to leave.  
For the last two days, she had watched the squirrel come and go. That morning she had risen at four, before the sun was even out, to wander to her spot and search the canopy of dry branches to look for his home. Rory had never been a morning person, and her four o'clock extrusions had never treated her well. She could take half an hour of being enchanted by dawn's beauty before she simply collapsed against a tree and slept until her face was splashed by the first rays of sun.  
That morning when she'd awoken again to see the squirrel peeking his head out from a branch in the tree in front of her, then diving to the ground. She had leaned forward, cupped her chin in her hands, and watched the squirrel that she found herself loving more then many a thing in her wretched... location.  
She had seen the squirrel four times so far. And so far it had left her an acorn each time.   
Rory had always had two voices in her head. The voice of her early years had always seen that the resident of the house down the street - the one who wore all black and walked with a twisted cane - was a witch.  
And then there was the voice that she had hoped would someday make her famous. The voice that sought a story in the cat-loving woman, wanted to make her into some newspaper character: a misunderstood old lady.  
That voice saw no potential in a squirrel, and in it's gift of the acorn. It saw nothing but one of nature's creatures using some defense mechanism it instinctively had: leave an acorn, the predator backs off.   
But the voice that knew a witch when it saw one - whether she rode on her broomstick in plain view or tried to disguise her witchiness beneath a mean old lady exterior - that voice loved the squirrel, saw it as different from every other squirrel in Salsville. It fueled the voice to whisper "thank you" to the rodents retreating form.   
Salsville had brought the childish voice out from hiding. Her journalistic voice had had little to do in the shifty town. It had gone to sleep when it discovered that Rory was letting it go for some guy that was her most recent love. Rory had realized it's absence when her husband showed her that their house of dreams was a falling down shack in a place where the most polite people were the ones who would take the longest in removing your money from your pocket. She had realized then that she had failed one voice.  
It was then that the other voice woke up and kept Rory alive.  
  
"Hello Mrs. Rytfen," Rory said cheerily from her place in the back of Goods and Gorp line.  
The woman shifted her eyes ever so slightly and then saw who owned the voice. A smile pumped with artificial flavoring spread across her tight lips, "Mrs. Hart," she purred, reaching out a claw like hand to Rory, "nice to see someone's in back of me. Can't have a girl like me in the back of the line."   
Rory had lived here for two years. She was still the new girl.  
"Ms. Gilmore," she corrected. It was habit by now, insisting on a more contemporary title in this old fashioned town. She didn't understand why she still bothered. Want of a Ms. was just another thing to add to the list of reasons to dislike the young and "rebellious" Lorelai Hart.  
"But isn't this your fourth time in the back of the line this week?" to be in the back of the line and Goods and Gorp was a sign of laziness. In Salsville, you were quick and alert whilst you shopped. The less time it took, the more time you had to sit around at home and practice your "shifty eyes". When you went to the Salsville Mall (a block of buildings calling themselves stores for clothes) your service was curt and rude. They might as well have been screaming at you, "faster, faster, the faster you are the quicker I can leave."  
"How is your husband, Mrs. Rytfen?" Rory asked in her most polite voice.  
"He is very well, Mrs. Hart. And yours?" the dialogue was sickening and tedious: straight out of a Marla Campun. Right about now the heroine would have rebelled and left the lazy town for intrigue, romance and excitement.  
"He has never been in a higher state of content with his life," she answered, trying to add some interest to the conversation. Sometimes she could actually find herself in competitions with the local folk of who could use the most 'big words' in a sentence. They hated it when she outdid them. However, Mrs. Rytfen was a self appointed queen of Salsville. She considered most below her, and was unshaken by any amount of excessive vocabulary.  
"I am happy to here that. There has been some silly rumor about divorce being in the wind for you two. But a divorce of such a young and carefree and romantic couple - under the Salsville sky, no less - would be such a shame."  
Sly, Mrs. Rytfen. What you mean, of course, is that I can't hold onto the pitiful excuse I have for a husband. And that I'm an idiot teenager who's going to end up living in a shack with a moron for the rest of her life.  
You see, I would be mad, but you're right.  
"Mrs. Rytfen, it's your turn," Rory's hand made a sweeping gesture to the counter. She resisted a very strong urge to stick her tongue and flap her hands at the witch when she was out of it's line of vision.   
The two years had brought great improvement on Rory's ability to withstand temptation.  
Only the tip of her tongue made it past her teeth.  
  
  
"Rory..." Dean walked into the room and gave his wife a stern look, "I need to talk with you."   
At that moment, Rory hated herself. She hated herself for praying that this talk would end in a divorce. She hated herself for praying that she would have an excuse to run, crying, to Stars Hollow and into her mother's open arms. Back into the life she had loved, the life that had been made so wonderful by every single resident of the town that was her life.  
Dean had been a part of it, but he had stopped contributing to the glory of Stars Hollow when...  
Dean's voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked down at her shoes, afraid that her face would show her eagerness.  
"Rory, I know that a 'where is this relationship' going talk is supposed to be a thing of high-school-sweethart days."  
Oh sure. Rub it in that I'm married to my first boyfriend. In that instant she stared at him, trying to appear extremely bitter and unlovable.  
"But I think that we need it. You see, Rory, I've been in love with you for a long time."  
"Dean, I think I know where this is going," she said quickly and (she hoped) curtly.   
"Oh, thank God. We all know I'm no good with words."  
"No, Dean, you're terrible with them. Terrible at everything," she was right now trying to figure out what would be the best way to angrily storm up to their room, grab the suitcase that sat in her closet and storm out. Rory had never unpacked. Dean had always told her this was temporary.   
"Everything but loving you," he said, his face wearing a little smile that could be called nothing but goofy.  
"Not anymore."  
"Well, I guess our freshly married relationship is finally over."  
"It did draw out for a little, huh?" ugh. She even said that last part with a smile. Why wasn't he giving her what she needed for a fight?  
"Well Dean, I don't think I can stand another second in this house. I think I'm going to go pack. Right now! The sight of this shack is... sickening...." his expressionless face hadn't given her the energy she needed to continue her passionate rage.  
"Well, aren't we a little drama queen?"  
"YES! Now I'm packing!"  
"Okay! Okay! Just, well, don't count on moving out of here for a while."  
His words froze her. Her foot was left hovering over the bottom step. Her head turned back to him and mission: stomping was halted.  
"Do... do you make a habit of keeping your ex-wives hostage?"  
Now both their faces showed obvious confusion, "Ror? Ex-wives? What are you talking about?"  
"Well, I thought we were getting a divorce...." she was squeaking like a mouse. He came over to her and had pulled her into a hug.  
"Rory, no wonder you were so mad! I just meant that we should, you know, start making this into more of a marriage. Get a bigger house, start making our... martial status more obvious to the rest of Salsville. I was talking to Mr. Plezer" the owner of the market where Dean was bag boy, "and he's forgotten all about you. I was lucky enough to get you. I want everyone to know how much we love each other."  
Right.  
"Oh... well... phew! That was close, huh?" she was crying, she realized.   
"Rory, don't cry. Don't cry."  
"I... I..."  
"You don't have to say anything. It's all right."  
  
  
"Hey Rory! The usual?"  
"Hey Diana. Yes, please."  
The coffee arrived. The coffee disappeared. Automatic reactions. She pulled a pen from her purse and began to scribble on her coffee cup.  
"What are you writing, Rory?" Diana asked. Why is it, Rory wondered, that everyone always has time to annoy me?  
"You know what's great about not working?" was Rory's answer.   
Diana sighed, "no, what?"  
"You have so much time to do nothing. Christopher Robin told Pooh that his favorite thing to do was do nothing."  
"Rory, I'm sensing a ramble."  
"Have you ever watched a squirrel? You should. They're so great, squirrels... they're so innocent and bold, so naive, so interested in doing what they do... they have such happy lives."  
"Yes, Rory. I suppose you want to be a squirrel?"  
"I wouldn't mind it," Diana got up and walked away. Lorelai Gilmore Hart was strange. Diana liked her, but she wasn't sure what she thought of her sanity.   
"Well, Rory, if you need anything more..."  
"Another coffee cup. I'm out of room on this one."  
"Sure," poor Rory. Diana knew how lost Rory was. One time she had even done a paper on her for school - changing her name to Alice Fillmont, of course.   
Poor Rory. She looked like she had been one of those who could've been big.   
Diana just hoped she didn't end up like her. She was pretty sure there wasn't any hope for Rory.  
  
~  
"Rory Gilmore, today is a monumental day. Today is a day that you and I will cherish forever. Today is a day that..."  
"Mom!" six-year-old Rory whined.  
"all right, all right," Lorelai pouted at the interruption in her speech but skipped to the end anyway, "today I have invited all our friends to witness this event. Kirk has even agreed to videotape it for us. Today we have with us all who are dear and some who aren't," those who were attending the Big Tasting glanced at one another," but that doesn't matter because no one can spoil this day for us! No one! So..." Lorelai glared at Luke. He went behind the counter, took the steaming pot, frowned and gave Lorelai his "you'll regret this face". Luke had a lot of faces for Lorelai.  
"Lorelai, you'll regret this. You'll regret this 'til the day you die. If you want to end up lying in a hospital bed attached to New York City's water supply and hooked into the electrical system, fine. But don't do it to your daughter."  
"Rory, bambi face, show him the bambi face," Rory looked up and gave Luke the bambi face. Lorelai added her own eyes. Luke frowned again.  
"POUR!" Lorelai commanded. He took a mug and poured the coffee. Another stern glance from Lorelai. He took Rory's favorite mug and poured it in there instead.  
Rory went up the counter and stood on her toes, her tiny face peering up from below the bar stool. She held up her hands and Luke started to pass her the coffee like he would Kirk when he was being a pest about beverages. Lorelai screeched and dashed behind the counter before snatching the coffee back and then cradling it in her two hands. Then she straightened and cleared her throat.  
"Rory, by the power invested in me by me, I now pronounce you able to take your very first sip of coffee," and with these words, Lorelai passed the mug down to Rory. Rory held it in between her hands and closed her eyes. She raised her mug to her lips and tilted back her head before letting the hot liquid heaven slide down her throat and warm her stomach.  
Almost the whole town of Stars Hollow stood staring at her. Each was waiting for the moment when Rory proved whether or not they'd win their bet: she'd love it, she'd hate it.   
Rory placed the mug back on the counter and held up her arms to her mother. Lorelai picked her up and kissed her forehead.  
"Well?" she asked.  
"It's yummy," Rory said, "it's very very yummy."  
The diner erupted in chaos. Everyone was jumping up and down, Luke was pouting, and Lorelai and Rory were drinking coffee together for the first time.   
"Rory, I want to let you know that all coffee is not as good as Luke's coffee. Luke's coffee is the ruling coffee of all coffee's. But there will come a time when you need to buy other coffees. And you will have to learn to live with them. However, if you have lived on non-Luke's coffee for over a week, murder is acceptable to get to it. And when we go home I'll teach you how to make your own - even though that will never be necessary with Luke so close by."  
"Unless," Luke added, "it's the middle of the night and I'm asleep and then you will have to make your own."  
"Like I said," Lorelai went on as if she hadn't heard the diner owner's grumble, "it will never be necessary. Because Luke will always be there for us."  
~   
"Luke!" Rory dashed into the diner, panting, "I need coffee!"   
"No," the man didn't even look up from the card he was scribbling on.  
"But I need it!" she said again.  
"Well I haven't made any and I don't have time. Did you not see the closed sign?"  
"But your door wasn't locked," the ten-year-old smiled, as if it made no sense. Luke looked up and sighed.  
Now that her request had been granted, she smiled and hopped onto a bar stool.  
"Who are you writing to, Luke?" she asked.   
"Santa Claus."  
"Did you ask him to bring me presents? Because I'd really like..."   
"I'm writing to my nephew."  
Rory leaned forward, "you have a nephew?"  
"Yea. It's his birthday sometime next week."  
"Next week is my coffee anniversary."   
"How could I forget?"  
"I'm getting free coffee, right?"  
"You always get free coffee."  
"But now I'll get more free coffee."  
"You know the limit."  
"But it's my coffee anniversary," she said in the same dazed voice as before. He gave her a glare.  
"What's your nephew's name?" Luke checked the card.  
"Jess."  
"How old is he?"  
"Your age."   
"I wish I had a cousin."  
"Here's your coffee," he began to usher her out the door, "and practice reading the word CLOSED once you get home. There's a difference between that and OPEN."  
"You practice reading the word HARDWARE!" she called as she skipped out the door, "there's a difference between that and DINER!"  
He smiled after her, and she stopped outside the diner to smile back. Her smile lit up her face.  
  
~  
  
Dean wasn't home once Rory got back from her eventless day. She collapsed on their couch and began to read. When he got back her kissed her and gave her a smile. He was so happy. So happy that they were "moving on."   
But they weren't. They could walk forward as far as they liked, but their hearts were back in their sixteenth year.   
She smiled back at him. The shape her lips formed had all the traits of a smile, but her eyes were dull as she looked at her husband.  
He pretended not to notice, and tried to remember when Rory had started smiling like that. 


	7. Hello, James Dean

Hello, James Dean  
By: ZLizabeth  
  
Disclaimer: I own seven minor soap operas, and I'd sell them all - and quite a few that weren't mine - to own this. Okay, so I don't own any soap operas. I'd still sell them all!  
  
Author's Note: I'm sorry this chapter is so short and bad. But I wanted to get two chapters out before I left this weekend. The next one might take a while to come up: so be warned!   
  
SPOILER: The next chapter is called: Tracks of my Tears  
  
  
Neither one of the two men that sat in the car were sure if they could get out.  
"Well, you found a parking place."   
"Yea," Sam said hollowly, staring at Stars Hollow's main street.  
"I think we need to get out of the car."  
"I'm going to get of the car now," Sam said, not to Jess, but to himself.  
"Do you need me to hold your hand?" Jess in the most mocking tone he had. Sam glared and unbuckled his seat belt.  
Jess threw open the door and got out.  
"Looks the same," he remarked, not admitting how glad he was of it.   
"Looks better then when I left it," suddenly Sam was smiling and he threw back his head and screamed, "WE'RE BACK!" so loud Jess clapped his hands to his ears.  
Of course at this the whole town poked their heads out of their fairy-tale homes and stared. Slowly they came out onto the street and just looked at the returnees, their mouths hanging open.   
Sam walked up to one of the houses that hadn't revealed any gaping idiots and knocked.   
"MOM!" he called.   
"Sam?" came a voice. The door slowly opened and the woman hugged Sam as hard as she could, "my Sammy!"  
The mouths of the townsfolk closed halfway. They smiled at the crying mother and son who stood in the doorway.   
They frowned at Jess.  
He grabbed his suitcase out of the trunk and walked up the street.  
"Just the kind of welcome I'd hoped for."  
  
Jess had walked to this house more times then he could count. He had paced back and forth, debating whether or not he should knock, throw a rock at her window...  
He wasn't 'fretting' as he knocked this time. He just slumped over and waited.  
The door opened. For the first time in his life he caught his breath. She looked the same, and he could even see Rory in her.  
"Hello, James Dean," she said.  
"Hello Ms. Gilmore."  
"Well, come in."  
  
He stood in her living room as he had six years before, looking at the pictures on her mantelpiece. Rory as a baby, Rory when she was six, holding a coffee mug, Rory, Rory, Rory. Lorelai came over and looked at the pictures.   
"So, let me guess, you missed her?"  
He shrugged and followed her into the kitchen where she sat down, a mug of coffee in her right hand.   
"I missed you, too, Lorelai," he said. She opened her mouth to continue the banter but he interrupted her, "I just need to find out about her. I need to find her."  
"Hmm," Lorelai took a sip, "this is very good for something I've cooked."  
He didn't point out that you didn't cook coffee. She was looking at him from the corner of her eye, measuring, seeing if he was worthy of her daughter. He could tell all this and sat up straighter, looking back at her.  
"Well, James, I guess you'll find out from someone else if you don't find out from me."  
"Most likely."  
"Rory doesn't live here anymore."  
"I guessed."   
She stopped. He noticed that he had leaned forward at the sound of *her* name. Embarrassed, he withdrew into his chair.  
"She's in Salsville, California."  
"You sure?"  
"My telephone bill tells me so."   
"How is she?" he asked. Mild. That's all he wanted. A mild conversation that led to answers.   
To his surprise, Lorelai started crying.  
He sat still for a long time as she cried, just watching her brown head quiver on the table and listening to her sniff and sneeze. He didn't look at the clock to time how long she trembled there. He just watched her, somewhere between confused and sad and angry and relieved and frustrated and lost.  
At last she lifted her head and he passed her a tissue. She took it and wiped her eyes. She did not look red and swollen. Crying became her.  
"Thanks, Jess," she said softly. Then she looked up and stated firmly, "I need a hug."  
He stood up and went to where she sat, then gave her a most awkward embrace. She clung tightly to him and kept crying. He held onto her and wondered why, why she as putting on such a display of emotion for a boy she had hated for a year and not seen in five.   
When her last tear had been shed, she let go of him and smiled.  
"I needed that."  
He just looked at her. He was confused, to say the least.  
"I needed to cry. Rory... Rory left this life," she waved her hand to the kitchen, "about two years ago. Hers is not a happy tale."  
"What happened?" he asked.  
"Well, she went to Harvard. And then to Yale. And then she told me one day that Dean - they were still together - Dean had asked her to go live with him in California. She was so sure that life was going to work out right for her. So she left and went with him."  
Oh.  
"I'm sorry, Jess. She and I don't talk much anymore. Whenever I call, I get her answering machine. Whenever I write, the reply could've been to Taylor as much as it was for me."  
He wasn't sure what to do. He sat there for a few seconds and then gave Lorelai a weak smile as a tear rolled down his cheek. She came over and gave him a much firmer hug.   
"It's nice to know someone's as miserable as I am. She's gone. But I bet..."  
she was having a hard time talking, "I bet they broke up. She was ten times to good for him."  
"Yea," was all he could say. He refused to let his voice be choked up in front of Lorelai.   
"Isn't it nice to have someone to cry with?"  
He nodded this time, feeling seven years old. A salty drop of water from Lorelai landed on his head.  
"I need a cigarette."  
"Too bad."  
"I quit."  
"You can sleep in Rory's old room tonight." The dialogue was pointless and meaningful at the same time.  
"Thanks," he said, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. He still couldn't believe the 'moment' he had just had. Finding out Rory was gone. Crying with Lorelai.   
"Jess," she called. He looked back at her, "some of Rory's books are still there."  
"Thanks," he said again.  
She knew that she didn't have to tell him where Rory's bedroom was. Once he was in his room, he smelled the air and he smelled her.   
He glanced at the bookshelves. Each had been labeled since he'd left: by author, genre...  
And then he saw a label underneath a shelf in the center of a bookcase.  
He went over to it and read it, sure for the first time he was in love with Rory.   
"Jess Books."  
Every shelf had a few books on it. He knew that they were Rory's least favorite of her collection.   
All but the shelf for "Jess Books."  
It was empty.  
She'd taken all those with her.  
  
  
Lorelai poured herself another cup of coffee. She was thinking how she would tell Jess in the morning. She hated that boy, but at least they had something in common now.   
She stared into the mirror and began to practice: "Good morning Jess. There is something I forgot to mention last night while we were crying our miserable worm eaten hearts out. Rory's married to Dean. Yea. Sorry about that. I know you love her and all but, hey, I love her, too. We both lost her to the freakishly tall Bag Boy. Want to have another little crying session? Oh, I see you've already started. Want me to buy you a pack of cigarettes?"  
She glanced at the microwave. It was three o'clock in the morning. She would be sleeping all day tomorrow - no. She had to tell Jess tomorrow.   
"Hey Lorelai."  
Speak of the devil.  
"Can I have Rory's address?"  
She gestured to the fridge.   
He grabbed it and gave Lorelai a rare smile before practically running out the door. She ran after him and reached the door.  
"Where are you going?" she screamed.  
He didn't look back as he walked down the street, "Rory!"   
Her jaw dropped. He kept walking.  
"You can't walk to California!" she called.  
"Where she leads I will follow!" he answered.  
And then she smiled. Her loathing of the kid who'd almost killed her daughter was gone.  
"Hey Jess!"  
"What?"  
"You can use my car! Keys in the ignition."  
He turned around and stared. She smiled. He walked to the jeep and turned it on.  
He started rolling forward.  
"Thanks!"  
Was the last thing she heard before he sped off into the night.  
  
  
Finding a parking space hadn't been hard. There were only a few cars and he, honestly, would have parked on top of one. He needed to see her right now.  
"27, 28, 29, 30, 31..."  
it was hard to believe that something so ugly could house Rory. His eyes flickered over the house and he made a lucky guess as to where her room was. He saw, though, that the wall leading to her window was impossible for climbing.  
He grabbed another side of the house and began to climb up. The gaps in the house made for easy footholds.   
His head was spinning with what-ifs. But his feet kept moving. They were not going to stop until they got to Rory.   
And then he reached the window about ten feet from where he guessed she was. He took a pebble from his pocket and tossed it to her window. He wanted her to be awake to greet him. He needed to hear her voice.   
Another pebble.   
Another.  
"Hey, you!" he yelled  
Another.  
He estimated about far he'd have to jump. He let go of the wall and sprung over to the window and tossed the final pebble.  
Plunk.  
  
He didn't notice as a car pulled out from the driveway and sped off carrying the patriarch of the household.  
  
  
*****Please R&R. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE it makes me feel so good inside, with your reviews, spinning the tide... DISCLAIMER: That's not my song. Oh, I'm insane. All the more reason for you to review! 


	8. Tracks of My Tears

Tracks of My Tears  
By: ZLizabeth (Lizabeth)  
  
Disclaimer: nt mn a.s.ps  
A SHORT DISCLAIMER  
  
Author's Note: I have been getting a lot of reviews saying that I need to work on formatting. Okay, so I'm working on it. I'm sorry about everything else.  
And I promise the story will be getting happier soon! After this chapter!  
  
~  
Lorelai looked up at Luke and then down at her empty coffee cup.   
"Guess what I want more than anything in the world right now."   
Rory scrambled onto her mother's lap and grinned at Luke, "Mommy wants coffee."   
"You are a smart little girl," Lorelai said, kissing the top of her head.  
"Rory, you're getting bigger every day," Luke remarked as he carelessly poured another cup of coffee for Lorelai, "it's probably because you don't have coffee stunting your growth and poisoning your very soul."   
"Ah. The doctor was wondering what was doing that to me," Lorelai said.   
"Shut up Ms. Gilmore."   
"Shut up Duke."   
Rory settled back into her mother's soft sweater. It was so interesting watching her Mommy and Mr. Luke argue. They acted like they hated each other... but she was sure that they didn't. After all, Luke had never once charged them... as far as she could remember. And she couldn't imagine him ever doing so. That would have been the end of her world.  
  
~  
  
The memory she started off with was just something she'd remembered lying in bed. It was a happy memory... and now she was awake. She opened up her laptop and began to write.  
  
~  
  
She came out of the store in deep thought. She was thinking of course, of how furious she was at that idiot for saying things like that to her mom. He had seemed all right at first, but how could she like anyone who her mother didn't like? That was violating whatever rules she and her mother shared in the extremely strange mother daughter best friends relationship they had. She didn't even see him coming up to her.  
"Hey."  
"Hey yourself," she said tartly.   
"What are you doing out here?" he asked. He sounded so *very*, *very concerned*.  
"I needed something for school. What about you?" she replied.  
"Oh yeah, same thing."   
"Uh huh. So, that was quite a disappearing act you pulled the other night," she was finding herself quite ready to get into a fight with Luke's nephew, the boy she was supposed to respect, be friends with, etc., he was Luke's nephew!   
"Potlucks and Tupperware parties aren't really my thing."   
"Too cool for school, huh?"   
"Yes, that is me."   
"What are you doing?" her patience was running out.  
"Oh this? Nothing. Just another little disappearing act," her anger was disappearing. Furious with herself, she tried to call it back.  
"Little tip?" she said.  
"Yeah?"   
"If you ever want to speak to me again, don't pull that out of my ear."   
"So I assume the nose is off limits too?" this was turning into a banter. The sort of banter she could have only with her mother. Feel safe within the conversation, the intelligent exchanges of simple words locking out intruders.   
"Any place you wouldn't naturally find a coin, let's leave it that way."   
"So what are you doing now?"   
"I have some homework to finish."   
"Okay, then I'll leave you this last little trick," he pulled out a book. It took her a second to recognize it.   
"You bought a copy? I told you I'd lend you mine," it already looked worn. Maybe he was a bit of a reader.  
"It is yours," finally. Another excuse to be angry. She felt, however, only the tiniest glimmer of anger returning. And it wasn't even anger, it was... it wasn't anything.  
"You stole my book," she said at last.   
"Nope, borrowed it."   
"Okay, that's not called a trick, that's called a felony."   
"I just wanted to put some notes in the margins for you."   
"What?" she leafed through the pages and read a comment he'd written - the same thing she'd realized after quite a few rereads," "you've read this before." Now she had a definite emotion: delight.   
"About forty times."  
"I thought you said you didn't read much."   
"Well, what is much? Goodnight Rory."   
"Goodnight Dodger."   
"Dodger?"   
"Figure it out."   
"Oliver Twist."   
She smiled and nodded. They both walked away and didn't even notice that the smile didn't leave her face until that night.  
  
*  
  
"Okay, Jess, here's one for you."  
"What?" he asked, wiping away at the diner counter and avoiding her eyes.  
"If Ayn Rand is so terrible, why does she use..."  
"Enough with Any Rand," he said, throwing the dishrag at her. She threw it at his face and stared at his turned back.  
"Jess..."  
He spun around and looked at her.   
*At least he makes eye contact* she thought.  
"How about this one. If a snowman's head falls off in the middle of the field and only one hooligan is there to hear it - the hooligan who committed the terrible crime of beheading the mound of snow with the professionally made little carrot nose - does the crime still count?"  
"If no one catches the hooligan then it's not his crime, is it? Because no one can prove he did it. Maybe he didn't do it."  
She smiled, "I think he did."   
"Think what you like."  
"I think it was actually very nice of the hooligan."   
"Hey, if the hypothetical hooligan did do it, it's only because the hypothetical girl deserved it."   
She felt something melt within her when he said that. Something... she wasn't sure what... but something. She suddenly felt the strong desire to go home and lay down and eat ice cream and tell her mother everything. Not the kind of thing she wanted to want right now.  
Instead she got up and gave the hooligan a smile before leaving the diner and heading off to school.   
Once she was directly below the HARDWARE sign she turned abruptly around and sapphire eyes met a pair of dark ones that were staring very intently back.  
She fell into her car and drove away faster then usual.   
Her writer's heart was coming up with a thousand cheesy expressions and not a single one that made her very happy: no matter how fast she went, she wasn't going to get any faster then the thumping in her chest right now.  
  
~  
  
"Mrs. Hart!" Dean said when he woke up late that night and found his wife bleary eyed and staring at her laptop screen. He glanced at what she'd written and saw only one line before she closed the screen... "and then she kissed him".  
"What are you writing?" he asked.  
"Nothing," she shut down the laptop and walked to the bed, "goodnight."  
"I have to go to the store," he said, "I just remembered we don't have any more coffee mix."  
"You do that."  
He smiled at her and left. She was the one he loved, she was. He pulled out of the driveway and repeated it in his head, even spoke out loud in the solitude of the driver's seat, "I love her, I love her."  
  
  
Plunk. Plunk.   
Rory grabbed her pillow, covered her ears with it and buried her head as far into the mattress as possible.   
"Go away!" she murmured, sleep already claiming her.  
Plunk. Plunk.   
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and curled up as small as she could. If she was smaller, then her ears couldn't hear things as loud. Oh, for the logic of the sleepy.  
Plunk.  
She rubbed the dust from her eyes and sat up in bed, letting loose a string of profaniti. Not exactly fitting for one of such a composed state in being awoken. She didn't exactly take after her mother. It must come with old age. She was such an old lady now. One profanity, two profaniti.   
Once satisfied, she lay back down in her bed.   
"Hey! You!" someone was calling from outside. The Plunker. They would have to wait their turn. She was lined up until morning. The girl fell back into her bed and greeted the date she was planning on staying out all night with.  
"Hello, Sleep. You look lovely tonight."   
She let her eyes drift shut and pulled Colonel Cluckers into a tighter hold.   
Pl-  
"Death to all Plunkies," she thought as the noise resounded throughout her airy bedroom. Plunk. At last she pulled herself up and walked to the window.  
"What the hell is going on you little.... insignificant.... little plunking ...worm..." she yawned and opened her window. Rubbing her eyes she finished her round of insults with - for good and degrading measure -, "kid!"  
"I missed you to," she heard. She was already half asleep so she simply opened her eyes then leaned out the window to look at whoever was there. Her body wasn't awake yet and as she threw her head out the now open widow she nearly toppled out. The Plunker had climbed up though, and she fell into someone instead. Her brain refused to digest the smell of his shirt, it was complaining that it was to early in the morning for thinking. So she simply raised her eyes and suddenly felt very, very, very awake.  
"What are you doing here?" was all she could say.  
"I just needed to tell you something."  
"What?"  
"You can stop crying, I'm back."  
"Well, I just can't get rid of you, can I?" 


	9. You Can Stop Crying, I'm Back

You Can Stop Crying, I'm Back  
  
By: ZLizabeth  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, I really need reviews here! I mean, REALLY REALLY. I have seen one chapter stories with more reviews than mine (by that I mean, like, fifty compared to my twenty four)... is my writing THAT bad? Okay, if it is, don't spare me the bitter naked truth. Just review. One word review: rocks. Sucks. Okay, those are acceptable. If you feel like making an occasional "I liked the part... because..." blah blah blah and continue on elementary school essay crap, I love you (the essay junk is THE BEST)! YOU WILL BE MY SHINING STAR!!!!  
  
Oh, and does anyone know where you can find Season ONE GG scripts? Or at least the PILOT?  
  
  
"You can stop crying, I'm back," was what he said.  
"Well, come in. I guess we'll need to find you a hotel," was what she said. He climbed into her room, not believing he was standing in Rory Gilmore's bedroom. For the second time in two days. In two different bedrooms. And he couldn't believe that there wasn't some sort of awkward silence that they tried to fill with, "so how have you been" and "how's work". But he had never had an awkward silence with Rory. Why should this be different?  
"What, I can't stay here?" and suddenly he felt seventeen, dodging what Rory intended and buying himself as much time as possible with this marvelous creature. No reason that this was any different.  
"Don't you wish. No, hotel. Ah, but I have to get dressed... so I'll get dressed..." he stared openly at her, "in the bathroom."  
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," he smiled at her and opened the bedroom door. A look of worry flickered across her face. Like she was remembering something.  
"No," she said quickly, "you can't go downstairs. What's the point in my *guest* moving when I, marvelous host that I am, can simply change in this closet..." she walked over to her closet and threw open the door to reveal about enough space to hold her legs. She then grabbed some clothes out of her drawer and disappeared into the closet to find the door would not fully shut.  
"Jess, could you hold this door closed?" she asked. He leaned against the door and listened to wire hangers topple off metal poles and bang against Rories.   
"Why don't you leave on your stunning Hello Kitty pajamas and shock the town?"   
"I don't think they'd notice. They really only pay attention to big things... like young girls not taking their husband's last names."  
He laughed, "and who was the rebel who requested that?" sharp intake of breath from the closet, "Mrs. Shoopa Coopa," came a quick reply.  
"This town is messed up, then. Shoopa Coopa?"  
"I know, why would someone want to keep that name?"  
"If it was a real name."  
"I was going for humor there."   
"And was there a scandal when you requested a bookstore that sold more than drugstore paperbacks in this town?" he didn't know why he had changed the subject. It was a profoundly seventeen-ish thing to do, not let the conversation settle, never let himself reveal much. Towards the end of when he'd known her, the topics had remained in their little chats for more than five minutes.   
"You noticed?"  
"The eyes of a reader never miss and town seeped in ignorance," he had observed some of the shops on his drive in - and the bookstore seemed to be located in the front of Rite Aid.  
"I haven't really requested anything to improve our literary structure yet," she said, and soundly very disappointed in herself. He changed the topic again.  
"How long have you lived here?"  
"About two years," she answered, stepping back into the room.   
She did look beautiful. She looked ravishing, stunning, lots of verbs and he thanked the Jess Show's creators for letting them talk as if there were no years, no memories between them.  
Rory looked different. She looked a bit less naive, and she looked tired. Her skin remained pale and flawless, yet her eyes were weary and not quite as shimmering as they used to be. She was slender and the timid child of the twilight, but the hints of the days worries were so prominent in something in her. He'd like to say that he could remember her so well and her image had so burned in his memory that he could tell these things without the slightest hints. But even a stranger could see the unhappiness eating away at her heart.  
Her eyes had always been what he'd loved the most about her. He had found that he was unafraid to lose himself in their sapphire depths, and he would do anything to earn a glance from them. Or make the slight crinkle appear on the edges when he did something so very wrong, so very Un-Stars-Hollow-Ish, something only they two could laugh at, consider wonderful, share as an inside joke whenever their eyes met.  
So it killed him now.  
But there was another thing.   
Her hair had never been something he had taken much notice of. Of course it was soft, perfect, impossibly wonderful for just a head of hair, blah blah blah. Yet all of Rory fit those qualifications.   
Yet now her hair stood out as it was pulled back into a simple, plain, victorian housewife bun. It wasn't Rory.  
"So," he had been staring, but it could pass as typical Jess behavior, "what do you say we bail?"  
Her eyes widened and she let her lips creep up at the edges, remembering that night they'd first met, "I know these windows open."  
Then she smiled and her features of fatigue melted. She was simply the Rory Gilmore he was *in love with*.   
And the smile lit up her whole face.   
  
  
He had been shocked when Rory was the first to jump out the window. She had scrambled down with clumsy and rolling movements, and he had laughed and flaunted his wall-dropping abilities in her face.  
When they at last reached the sidewalk (Rory having fallen on top of Jess) he was hungry. And he was sure she was too.  
"So, where can you eat in this hellhole?"  
"There's a Starbucks..."  
"Rory Gilmore reduced to chain coffee. Never thought I'd see the day."  
"It's open pretty late," she went on, ignoring him pointedly, "and we can get real food."  
"I'm all for it."   
"We shouldn't eat there, though."  
"Why not?"  
"...uh... it's not a nice place," Rory, you are an awful liar, was all he thought. But he kept his mouth closed.  
"So where should we eat?"  
There was a second where Rory stared at him and then opened her mouth, "I know a nice little place."   
"As opposed to your not nice place."  
"Exactly."  
"Take me there."  
  
  
  
"This is terrible," he said after his first sip of orange juice.  
"Isn't it?" she said, gloating.  
Jess and Rory were seated on a log in a clearing in a forest. Rory had pulled him off the road and into the woods that surrounded the town. And then she had sat him down on a log in a place with a canopy thick enough to make it hard to distinguish her features. However, the tone in her voice, literally, spoke for itself.  
"You shouldn't have gotten orange juice. Juice is the healthy competitor in the race for popular beverages. Coffee should prevail."  
"In this case, I'm routing for the other side. This is the single worst Styrofoam container of orange juice that I have ever tasted."  
"Shouldn't the Styrofoam container tell you something?"  
"That I'm a fool?"  
"Maybe."  
She leaned her hand against his shoulder then, and let it rest there as if this was the most natural position in the world.  
They sat there in silence for what must have been twenty minutes. And then suddenly Rory spoke, breaking the peace he felt with the exact words she said. Not her voice. Rory's breathing or Rory's chatter, there wasn't a way he could choose. The words were so foreign and not like Rory that even her musical voice couldn't make them any better.  
"Well, we can't have you loitering around here all night, I guess we should get you a hotel. Like I said before," her voice was embarrassed, ashamed.  
"Well Rory, it's nice to know that you don't want me spending the night out here."  
She looked slightly offended, then brightened, "wouldn't that be nice? Sleeping out here, in My Spot, just you and the squirrels and the beautiful air and the night. Like you're wrapped up in a silk sheet and a velvet blanket. I should do that sometime."  
"Hey, Gilmore, there's no time like the present. Why don't you and I sleep out here tonight? I'm sure there has got to be at least two sleeping bags in this place."  
Several emotions danced on her face. Rory was not one for concealing feelings, "no... I can't... I have to... you see..." she seemed lost on how to begin her sentence so he forced a laugh and gave a mild-toned, "that's fine."  
"Good. So, I'll take you to a hotel. And we can get together tomorrow morning. Unless you have plans..."  
"Rory, the only reason I would actually come to a place like this would be to see you."  
She smiled up at him and then made her way back into the town. He followed her like an obedient puppy.  
  
When they reached the jeep, she stopped and her jaw dropped.  
"You have mom's car."  
"Yea."  
"Why?"  
"She lent it to me."  
And then he watched as she slumped over, realizing that this was going to be a game of dodging any comments or questions about what their life had been since the night five years ago.  
She smiled again and took his hand, "the hotel here has terrible service."  
  
  
Over the next week, Jess had a better time then he'd had in five years. He and Rory made fun of the so-called-books that the Rite Aid sold, ate at Starbucks, visited Her Spot, and enjoyed the banters of half a decade ago. They never talked about what had happened to him once he'd left, what she'd done, how Luke was, how Lorelai was, and they were very careful to stay away from memories. Because as many as there were that had turned Jess' life into *something* there was always that little person that could've wrecked the simple friendship they had managed to rebuild from the ruins of everything from Washington to the Diner Farewell.   
It wasn't exactly forgiveness, as neither Rory nor Jess was sure anymore who needed to be forgiven. And the little bit of warmth they'd managed to rekindle from the ashes of the huge fireplace was so delicate that the slightest breath could blow it out.   
The Salsvillians (Rory had shared with him her nickname : Sals-villains) were distant to Jess and took no notice of him. They never said hello, they never told him to keep away from their Rory, and they never even looked at him.   
So they were safe. Rory had kept Jess to herself... when she saw friends on the street she had hurried on after waving, as if she was afraid of something they could reveal to Jess. And every night after the day they'd spent together she'd vanish into the place that now was home; the ugly ugly house. And in the morning there she would be, at Starbucks, waiting at "their table."   
He didn't ask her anything. He was to afraid of tipping the scales out of balance and sending himself plummeting back into a Roryless world.  
He had her back. And it didn't matter to him how little of her recent life he truly knew, how little she really did belong to him now. He would continue this charade of the same ole friendship as long as he could. The smallest word could tear her away.  
He was doing something that he had only done once - his seventeenth year.  
He was writing his own lines and not letting the script rule the pathetic excuse he had for a life. 


	10. Married In Blue

Married In Blue  
  
Author: ZLizabeth  
  
A/N: once again I'm sorry it took me a teensy bit of a while to update. My muse decided I was no longer it's most important client and dashed off to inspire more talented writers. Ahh, well, I'm it's loss. So I'm writing a museless story right now, and if it's bad, BLAME THE MUSE!!!!  
Okay, I am SO SO SO sorry about my inability to edit. You really have no idea how sorry I am. But it just COMES with my *straightens hair* BRILLIANCE. Okay? All geniuses have faults! :) But quite a few things have been straightened out in this chapter from the last one, so please read. And review.  
  
  
"Okay, now, I have to put this in this bowl... or is it that bowl? How much am I supposed to put in, speaking of whiches and whats... Is that a two or five? And that, three or an eight! Three or eight!" she demanded of the kitchen, "God, why haven't they invented inflammable recipes! Idiots!"   
Rory was standing at her stove, and using it for the first time. The devils hands had already taken off a small portion of hair in the front, and had consumed the entire right side of the recipe for whatever she was making. She'd forgotten by now what it was and the aroma suggested only that she was trying to recreate in a dish the burning of Rome.   
Dean, of course, was the reason Rory was standing in the blackened kitchen.  
Naturally her over possessive boy - no, husband, had grown suspicious over her all-day absences. She was making him dinner to soothe his worries.   
Her excuse had been that she was job-hunting. He never believed a word she said anyway, so hidden beneath his shifty glances was 'she never lies, but I have to act like she's a liar anyway'.  
She was safe. For the time being.  
Yet another side of her was scoffing at her attempt to hide Jess. You're not doing anything wrong, it said. Have you ever, in any way, committed any form of adultery. Are you entitled to tell your husband everything?   
In a true, trusting, marriage, yes.  
But she was a liar. Because, even though she never even let herself think it, it wasn't Dean she felt bad lying to.   
It was Jess.  
When her half-closed eyes had seen his face, she'd wanted to throw her arms around him and whisper in his ear how much she'd missed him. She'd wanted to scream at him for leaving her, then smile and say she'd forgiven him. Any sort of emotional exchange would've suited her.  
But no. All they had now was this small little thing that wasn't allowed any sort of feelings at all. Not friendship-wise, not anything wise.  
She'd kept him out of her house and away from the mantelpiece photos. She had covered when she'd almost said how she was married. She had allowed them one memory only. An innocent memory of a Jess furious with the world and a naive Rory. Before he had begun to change her and she'd begun to change him. Though she couldn't take to much responsibility for "nice Jess", the post-kiss Jess. She liked to think he'd done that because he wanted to. Maybe even for Luke.  
Even though she knew it was all for her.  
She hadn't told him how special Her Spot was. How he was the only one she could've trusted to share in it's splendor.   
She was so very lucky this town didn't gossip. All she had to do was make sure Dean didn't see her with him, and she was fine.  
She hadn't asked him about the jeep.   
"Maybe he already knows," she mumbled, stirring the whatthehellisthat-in-a-pan around, "he has Mom's jeep. He must've seen the pictures mom has. Of the wedding."  
"I'm home!" came a voice from the front door. A voice that didn't expect an answer. But she had stayed away from Jess today. Her phone call hadn't received any questions. As was expected. No questions asked, that was the "relationship" she and Jess had.   
What sort of friendship was that?  
  
  
  
Lorelai Gilmore lay on her bed, her fingers tracing the face of her daughter, standing in a blue dress and being towered over by her husband. The picture only came out of it's drawer when Lorelai was in the mood for a good crying session.  
She hadn't been married in white.   
Rory was supposed to have had the perfect perfect life. She was going to grow up, she was going to see it through high school, she wasn't going to get pregnant before she was respectfully married, she was going to go through college. She was going to have a job. She was going to be famous. She would find herself a wealthy husband she was in love with and they would have a huge wedding in a big church with stain-glass windows. The guests would all be famous people who really didn't care that Rory was getting married, only cared about being in the newspaper (there were going to be a lot of photographers there, but only the best to cover *Rory Gilmore*'s wedding). But in the front row would be Rory's real friends and family, and they would love that she was having the perfect wedding and they'd behave themselves throughout the wedding (at least, good behavior as far as Stars Hollow goes).  
And she was going to raise an actress and a president, and she was going to live her life happily, and she was going to be everything Lorelai wasn't.  
Maybe Lorelai had been a bit to concentrated on making sure she didn't end up like her.  
Of course she hadn't been the stern mother *her* mother had been, but she had done little things to push Rory into a bright bright future.   
Dean had been perfect boyfriend. And she was so happy when Rory and him began to have a nice little relationship.   
And then Jess had shown up and began to punch holes in the balloon that was Rory's perfect future. Lorelai had been so mad at him, and she had done the wrong thing, she knew.   
A tear dropped on the picture.   
Jess would've been a typical boyfriend. He had reformed and they would've had a little dating history and then would've agreed to remain just friends. Lorelai could see it now, the breakup. Rory and Jess would blurt it out and the same time and then they'd smile and hug and be back to a buddy-buddy relationship. And Rory would move on and her life would remain unscarred.  
But Lorelai had refused to see that. She saw only her daughter with a nice, big round stomach. And she had shoved Jess out her daughter's life as fast as she could.  
And somehow, that had led to her daughter, her perfect daughter, the daughter she loved more than anything, marrying the freakishly tall Bag Boy. The first boy she'd ever dated.   
And turned her Rory's perfect, wonderful, formal, full-of-celebrities wedding into some stupid affair in a place that might has well have been a garage.  
And Lorelai knew it was her that had melted the wedding dress from a beautiful puff of silk and lace into a plain blue dress made of cotton.  
  
  
That morning Rory snuck away through the morning fog to her spot and found Jess there, leaned against a tree. She tried to smile and went to sit next to him. She was crying by the time she had reached the log.  
"Hey Rory."  
"Hey Jes..." her voice cracked and she buried her face in her hands. He stroked her hair. She looked up at him and gave him the most pathetic of smiles.  
"Don't waste your energy on smiling like that Rory."  
"That's the Rory smile nowadays."  
"Don't say that. That's like forcing my admission to the Weepers club right now."  
"Jess, just admit it. I have the power to make you cry."  
"Ugh. When you phrase it like that it sounds so unprofessional."  
"The truth hurts."  
Silence.  
Suddenly she sat up, "Jess, I need you to promise me something."  
"Rory..."  
She was perfectly aware she was violating the unspoken rules they'd established, "it's called throwing caution to the wind for a few moments. And this is serious. I need you to promise me that you won't leave me ever again."  
"Isn't that Hollywood of you?" he was smirking.  
"Yes. It is."  
He looked at her pleading features and gave her the smallest of smiles, "fine."  
"Promise."  
"I promise I won't ever... leave you. I am so disgusted with myself right now."  
"Think how I must feel."  
And then his lips parted. She wondered what he was about to say. But without warning, the fear of losing Jess came back and she stopped whatever might have possibly been said.   
"Okay, we can go back to normal now." A forced smile from him.  
"Good. Because kodak moments really aren't my thing."  
She butted her head against his arm. And then leaned against him to watch the sun rise.  
It felt all to natural, and wonderful...  
And extremely inappropriate for a no feelings relationship.  
The sun was just beginning to peek through the trees. She reached the back of her head and finally freed her hair from it's drawn back prison.  
  
"The sun has arisen, and we can either go to Starbucks or go home. Or stay here."  
A sudden deja-vu came to Rory.  
Turn right, her heart and mind were screaming, turn right!  
"I have to go home," she said, "but I'll walk you back to the hotel."  
"That's right," disappointment was obvious in his voice, you haven't seen it since I've moved in."  
"I'd love to see what you've done with the place."  
"Well, with a bed, two chairs and television, the possibilities are endless," he said. She was already smiling, and she stood up to lead him out of the woods. The trail was hard to find.  
  
"So this is your lovely little home,"  
"Next time you'll have to show me yours."  
She looked up at him and shook her head gently. She wanted to end this stupid little mimic of friendship right now and tell him the truth - the lies were eating away at the edges already. But she was to afraid to lose this... as pitiful as it may be.  
He shrugged his shoulders and flopped down onto the couch.  
There was the place they endured their first and most awkward silence.  
"Rory..."   
"Jess..."  
It was over then as he half-smiled and took out a book. Reading together. Something she had always loved doing. The five seconds that had just passed seemed like an eternity, and she cared not to suffer that again.   
"Where can I find a decent book?" she said, knowing very well the Jess she had known would not travel without one.  
"My bag... front pocket. I must have something in there."  
She left the room with a nod to him and opened up the first pocket. Nothing in here but a shoe box... maybe he had his books in there.  
She gasped as she pulled off the lid.   
On the top layer was pictures of her and Jess together. There were only about ten: neither one had been to interested in posing for cameras (not that anyone would have volunteered to take their picture anyway). Most of these were from the time Rory was in New York. Avid tourist that she was, she'd brought along a disposable camera (she hadn't told him it wasn't for him. It had been for her mother's graduation. Now she felt guilty as she realized there could be so many more in here if she had realized she would never make it to the graduation).  
And underneath the pictures was a stack of papers with a single blue sheet of printing paper.   
Writing To Rory  
From Jess Mariano  
She realized that this was NOT the book he intended for her reading. She also realized that her oh-so-disobdient fingers were already flipping the 'cover' off, and gingerly picking up the first sheet of paper.  
  
  
***Okay, here's the deal. If you like it, you review. If you hate it, you review. If you are robbed of your ability to type you pick up a pencil with your teeth and press the keys. Or something not so bossy. How about, I love you all, please review. Or just the basic *gets down on knees and humbly bows head, then wails her plea*. Whatever you would find the most encouraging way to review. 


	11. Erasing The Truth

Erasing The Truth  
  
By ZLizabeth  
  
Disclaimer: Guess what? Not mine! *GASP*   
  
Author's Note: 'tis such a pity that I am terrible at updating. I could really use some reviews on how many chapters you want me to make this. I know HOW I want it to end, but I'm not sure how long you people want me dragging it out. So comments on that in your REVIEWS *cough* would be SOOO very helpful!  
Oooh, SAD chapter coming up! oh yeah, sad in contrast to all my other really happy chapters!  
  
  
The jeep was still parked in front of the motel.   
Jess tossed the keys up in the air and caught them. He glanced out his window at it sitting so calmly in the street.  
Just waiting for him to screw things up. Patiently waiting for him to fly from her side again. He could already see it rolling down the unpleasantly silent street. And it was just waiting. Just waiting and waiting and waiting.   
Not that he had anything against the poor jeep. It had been nothing but helpful to him. It had born him all the way to California from Connecticut. It was a symbol of Lorelai's trust.  
Yet it was his way of escape. And personally he found that he was to tempted by escape.  
And not escape from this stupid town - which he had discovered he hated twice as much as he had originally hated Stars Hollow - he wanted to escape from Rory. He wanted to get away from those constant pangs of guilt: you stayed fixed on her for five pathetic years. You worked in a underpaid coffee shop so you could be reminded of her. She's moved on, she moved away, she...  
And then there was what was keeping him here.  
He really knew nothing about Rory. Nothing more than he had known since the night in the diner when she kissed him for the last time. And as much as it tore him apart to be so close, yet so far....  
Oh God. If his thoughts were a book he'd be erasing and scribbling and erasing over that last line. So close, yet so far? Cliché, cheesy, and the kind of line he and Rory would never stand for in a book.  
Why couldn't anyone have come up with another saying for that. That was something that they could do together tomorrow. Come up with sensible expressions in exchange for painfully disgusting time-honored phrases.   
But he was just that. He would sit next to her in the beautiful place that made her happy, she would rest her head on his arm and he could feel her breath as well as see it as it floated away. But then she would run off, go back to her home and disappear entirely. And he would realize that the moments were nothing compared to how much she had cut herself off from him. How little she let him know.  
He still wouldn't give up those moments for anything. Not anything.  
Erase. Cross out. Erase.  
  
Rory wouldn't look at him later that day. She stared into her coffee, out the window, anywhere but at him.  
"Rory?" he asked.  
"Yes?" she said, her head snapping up. Once their eyes met she looked away again.   
"Are you all right?"   
She gave him a feeble smile, "no. Not really."  
"What is it?"  
"A whole new Jess. Concerned, considerate..."  
"It's been five years, Rory."  
"That's just it!" she cried, suddenly very in the moment, "we haven't seen in each other in five years? I mean, how do we know if we haven't changed? How do we know if one of us... say me... is an evil monstrous evil embodiment of... evil?" he tried not to laugh, "Maybe one of us... say you... is still the same person that they used to be... that used to be friends with... say me... but the other one... me ... is all different. You shouldn't like that person anymore, right?"  
He had no idea what she was saying, "all right... so you don't want us to continue these small movements of friendship?"  
"It's not that!" she said hurriedly, "no, not that at all. I just think that we should reconsider our feelings. For each other."  
"Well, Rory, I think our feelings for each other are pretty obvious."  
Her lips parted. She smiled then, "I guess they are," she said softly.  
"Right," he said, swallowing, "if we were so desperate for a more close relationship - in friendship or otherwise - don't you think that one of us might've acted on those feelings by now?"  
A look of surprise flitted across her eyes, but the smile stayed plastered on her face, "exactly my point."  
"Good."  
"Good."  
She began to write on her coffee cup.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Writing on a coffee cup," she answered, "I want you to read this..." she suddenly crossed out whatever it was she had written, "uh... something... I picked up at a bookstore the other day."  
"Where is it?" he asked, immediately curious about the coffee cup.  
"At my house..." she said, "but we can't go there..."  
"Rory, can we talk?"   
"That I would like."  
"Okay. We'll go to the hotel if we can't go to your house."  
"Okay," she said in a meek voice. He held open the Starbucks door for her. She went through and muttered something about meeting him back here in twenty minutes. He nodded, but she was already running away.   
With twenty minutes to kill he wandered back to their table and reached for the coffee cup. Another hand met his. He looked up and saw a waitress - maybe seventeen - smiling guiltily.   
"Everyone in town wonders about Rory's coffee cups. She's never left one here before. But I saw you two talking. It's probably none of my business to read it."  
"No, it probably isn't."  
"Just... could you tell me what it's about? A diary entry, a poem, a picture, anything?"  
He looked at her quizzically, "and who are you to read Rory's coffee cups?"  
"I'm Diana," she said, shaking his hand, "I've been serving Rory coffee for two years."  
"So you can be trusted," he looked down at the coffee cup. She had thoroughly crossed out everything that had been written. All he saw was one word: lying.  
His imagination took flight. What had she been lying about? Did she think he was lying?  
He sighed and fell into his chair. The knowledge was nothing new. He hadn't told Rory the exact truth about his life, and she had done the same to him. It wasn't exactly lying, but it came close enough.   
"Diana?" he called out.  
"Yes sir?"  
"Jess."  
"Yes Jess?" she fought back a smile at the rhyme.   
"Can I ask you something about Rory?"  
She looked at him, "I don't know. Should you?"  
"It's not anything personal."  
"Then go right ahead," she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.  
"Is Rory..."  
Speak of the devil. The door banged open and Rory ran in, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of Starbucks.  
"There is something I need to tell you," she said as they hurried along, ignoring traffic lights and unaware of all other pedestrians, "and there is only one way I am going to be able to tell it to you. And there is only one time that I am going to be able to tell it to you, and that is now. And if I wait to long, I will not be able to tell you."  
She came to an abrupt halt in front of a brown door. It wasn't big, but to Jess it seemed to be looming above him. She took out a key and unlocked the door, careful, he noticed, to cover up her left hand.   
And then they walked into her house.  
  
The inside was unimpressive. Just a few photos here and there - none of which he paid attention to. His gaze was fixated on Rory's fist... clenched so tight he couldn't see her fingers.   
They came into the living room. She gestured awkwardly to the couch and they both sat. She kept looking away. He took her tiny hands in his own and she looked up at him, made sure that their fingers didn't touch, and began to babble incoherently.  
"Okay, Jess, I am going to say this in one breath and you're going to hate me and I am so sorry and I hate myself and I hope you hate me and I miss my mom and I..." he looked at her, "right. I'm..."  
The door opened, "Mrs. Rory Hart! [a/n: wrong last name, I know] I'm home!"   
Jess' jaw dropped.  
Bag Boy stood in front of him and Rory. Taller than ever - if that was possible.   
And he looked.... upset.  
Jess quickly turned away from Rory and dropped her hands. And then he looked down at them and everything became clear. A ring. In the right place.   
The wrong place for him.  
"That's what I was going to tell you," she said, staring at her feet.  
"Ah," Jess said. He was speechless. And then he said the first thing that popped into his head, "why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"  
  
  
****So it's short. That leaves more time for REVIEWING! 


	12. Bumping Into Bag Boys

Bumping Into Bag Boys  
By: ZLizabeth  
  
REVIEW, PLEASE, REVIEW, PLEASE!  
  
Okay, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all the people who have reviewed. This is a long deserved thanks. And this sounds SO VERY STUPID, but I am still going to list all of the multiple reveiw people here. DeeAnne, TheDarkestAngel, rebelcowgirlhick, yasmin, prianka, and then Rebecca, Dani, jen, SassyAngel05, MunchyCat, ;), Sara, Gina, #1 Dean Fan, lee, Melissa, Samantha, Jen, heather, and SCAV. I love you all!  
  
  
"Is there any affordable gas in this town?"  
"Why?" Diana looked up from wiping tables, "are you leaving?"  
"The thing I came for turned out not to be here," he answered simply, sitting down at one of the empty tables.   
"What do you mean?" she sat down across from him and smiled, "Rory?"  
"She's married," he said quietly.  
Diana's head snapped up, "you didn't know she was married?" if this wasn't a person she cared about she'd be grabbing a soda and sitting down to watch the soap opera.  
"And it's not that. I could deal with it if she was married to anybody else. But married to Bag Boy? Is the universe trying to rub it in?"  
"Dean's not my favorite guy either."  
"So the nickname stuck?"  
"What do you mean?" she asked, "he's a bag boy here, too."  
He laughed at that. It was a dry, hollow, laugh, but it was a laugh just the same, "I always imagined he'd be something for her."  
"He's a nice man," she said, as if it offered any comfort.   
"That's just what I couldn't stand about him," she looked up and kept her sympathetic face on for the whole monlogue. The guy looked like he needed somebody to show sincerity, "I was seventeen years old. I hated the world. I had moved to this hellish plastic Halmark card town. I was miserable. And then I met Rory Gilmore. Everybody loved Rory Gilmore. She was nice, she got perfect grades, and she the perfect little girl. I was so pathetic. And she had that idiot boyfriend, about twice her size, always following her everywhere she went. And so he's finally snagged her for good."  
"I'm sorry, Jess."  
"You win some, you lose some," he said as he stood up.  
"What did you win?"  
"I got to see her again."  
"And you lost?"  
"The chance of ever seeing her again," he half smiled at her.   
"Not much of a win, huh?" she said.  
She shuddered after he left. Rory's life was not so much of a mystery anymore. She had thought that maybe Jess could get her out of Salsville. No such luck for Rory.   
The waitress took off her acorn and turned around the "we're open" sign. Pulling on her coat she shivered again. To end up like Rory Gilmore would not be a happy fate.  
  
Rory sat in her bedroom, knees curled to her chest. She hadn't left the house all day. It was beginning to cool down and she'd turned on the heat for comfort. Just a light setting so the room didn't become too unbearable. In Stars Hollow the winters had been about the hum of the radiator, and the snow. Winters here weren't very cold. Or very pleasant. A few trees were added to the households. The stores put up christmas lights. The Goods and Gorp even played carols on a broken tape that skipped every time the word "the" came up.  
The radiator hissed. She wanted to bury into her covers and live forever in her bed, away from all the hurt of the outside world.  
Dean hadn't come home yet. She didn't know where he was and found she didn't paticularly care. He had just turned and left the house after he had found her there with Jess. Jess had done the same. Without a word. Left her alone in the huge house that she hated and hated her.  
She crawled out from under the huge sheet and made her way down to the living room. Her slippers didn't make any noise as she padded down the stairs. As slow and as solem as death itself.   
She came into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was this horrible bright yellow that had faded into a dull bright yellow. It looked, to her, like a sick canary.   
Rory reached under the couch and pulled out a huge dusty box. She pulled off the tape. It gave no fight, the stickiness had probably worn off years ago.   
She opened the first huge binder that came out of the cardboard box. It was filled with baby pictures. The toolshed. The wonderful toolshed. She glanced around her and shuddered, not daring to let the thoughts enter her mind. She wasn't in a mood for crying.  
The next binder was her all around Stars Hollow - as a toddler, a seven-year old, and then her in their house. The Gilmore's first real house.  
She closed the binders quickly and replaced them. Now was not a time to stray into the past.  
She had to think about her life. Her marrige was in the position to be saved, and the past held nothing but memories and...  
Jess still loved her.   
The thought came from nowhere. Or maybe just from thinking of the horrible memories. Such wonderful memories! Her head was babbling. She was even babbling as she analyzed her babbling.   
She needed fresh air. A walk.   
Jess still loved her. The thought was taunting her.  
Should have never read those stupid letters.  
He still loves you, came the sing song voice.  
None of your buisness, reading the letters.   
He said he still loved you! He said it! But he didn't say it to you!  
She opened the door and paused in the doorway. The crisp air reawakened her dulled senses.   
Do you still love him?  
  
He did not mean to bump into Rory.   
He meant to drive to Stars Hollow, drop off the jeep, avoid meeting any people, get back to New York, and start over. New York City was full of new things for him to find. He could start writing or something. Quit the coffeeshop.  
Instead he crashed into Rory. The perfect way to start getting her off his mind.  
She was walking slowly, eyes gazing into the night sky. She looked lost and helpless and she didn't look like she had any destination in mind.   
He was hurrying down the desolate sidewalk, eyes down. He didn't see her, she didn't see him. Not until they were both lying on the sidewalk and glanced up to see who they could yell at for being careless.  
Her eyes were big with surprise. He sat up but stayed there, frozen. She crawled over to where he was sitting and hugged her knees to her chest.   
"I'm sorry for bumping into you, ma'am," he said, looking straight ahead.  
"Jess!"   
"People these days are so clumsy. Like me, they just walk down the streets, careless, and then bump into innocent young ladies like yourself."  
"You can't give me the casual treatment! That's not fair!"  
He got up and wiped imaginary dirt off his shirt, "once again, I'm sorry. I hope that we can meet again under more pleasant circumstances."  
*You're squirming. I've never seen you squirm before. It's very entertaining.*  
He was already turning away.  
"I don't," she said icily as she stood up and came to stand next to him. Then she reached forward and prepared to slap him.  
"Rory?"   
Her hand lost momentum and paused on his face, "Dean."   
Her husband smiled coldly at her, "sorry to interrupt."  
"Oh, you're not interrupting anything," Jess assured him, "I was just leaving."  
Dean forgot about Rory then, "it was nice having you."  
Jess rolled his eyes, "sheesh, look at you, towering over me, acting like we're seventeen. The two words are grow and up," Dean's eyes narrowed, "yes," he went on sarcastically, "your wife and I are having an affair. All the clues point to it. I never was able to stand you, Mr. Dean, and I never will be able to,"  
He turned to Rory, "and you. You said to me that you hated your life here. You told me that you were unhappy. And I don't blame you for hating it. But it's your fault, Rory. You're the one who married the Bag Boy."  
She grabbed Dean's arm, ignoring how much he had just hurt her, "Dean, you can't believe what he said. I love you, I've always loved you..."  
"Whatever Rory," he tugged loose of her and began to walk away.   
"DEAN!" she screamed, her pace quickening as she ran after him, "Dean!" he entered the house and slammed the door. She banged on it and the gates that had been holding back her tears burst open, and the tears burst forth.  
The door remanined closed. Tall and impassive.  
She mutely walked down the sidewalk. She stopped when she came to Jess. She looked up at him and stared, her eyes and face glistening in the dim light of the Goods and Gorp. She stayed staring at him for few seconds before she walked down the street.   
"Rory, wait!" he called, his idiocy just hitting him. She continued walking and stopped when she reached the jeep. Tugging open the door she climbed inside and closed the door. He heard the engine come to life.  
And he ran after her.  
The car began to roll down the street. He ran after it and grabbed hold of the side door, then opened it and jumped in.   
She didn't look at him, "You could've hurt yourself."  
"I live on the edge. And I'm not jumping out."  
"You do know I hate you right now?"  
He didn't answer. Instead he just watched as she drove the jeep down an road free of destanation: turn right at this fork, left at this one, take this exit, turn off here.  
After what seemed like years he finally spoke.  
"Do you have any idea where we are?"  
She still wouldn't look at him, "nope."  
  
*****  
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	13. It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christ...

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas....  
By: ZLizabeth  
  
THERE WILL BE AN EPILOGUE! HOWEVER, THIS IS THE SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER! PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW! THIS STORY WILL PROBABLY ONLY BE VISIBLE AND IN THE FAVORABLE PART OF REVIEWING FOR (MIN) TWO MORE WEEKS! SO PLEASE REVIEW! IT WOULD REALLY MAKE ME VERY HAPPY! VERY VERY HAPPY! HEY, A LOT OF YOU ARE WRITERS! YOU KNOW HOW A REVIEW FEELS! MY GOAL THIS WEEK IS TO REVIEW AT LEAST TEN STORIES! AND IF I SEE YOUR NAME, I'M PROBABLY GOING TO REVIEW YOURS! (YES, THAT WAS A BRIBE. I AM SHAMELESS!)  
In response to many a review, I know I beg. I will beg and beg and beg and, eight reviews to one chapter in about three days was pretty GOOD, so I will continue to beg! Thank you all again for such wonderful reviews....  
AND TO DEEANNE...  
We all know that Rory likes Jess NOW in the show, yet she does find it hard to let go of Dean. I think that in five years the pain of losing your first love could still exist. Jess would probably understand that, and I think that seeing Rory hurt would hurt HIM, so he would jump after her. He always jumps after her, even after she is all weepy over Dean (that is, until along came a Shane). And I will sort out everything so that it's clear to all that Rory DID NOT pick Dean, don't worry....   
  
Rory's knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. The deja vu of the day was close to driving her insane. Dean and Jess fighting. Jess running after her. Jess and her in a car. None of these were memories of much pleasantries.  
Add to that they were lost. And it was her fault.   
He hadn't tried to get her to speak. They had been driving and driving and it was a silent night in the Gilmore jeep. She was so mad at him for what he did. Dean had been hovering on the edge since the beginning. And Jess had finally pushed him over. She would have been happy of this earlier. But she had decided about five hours ago that she wanted to make her marriage work. She had loved Dean, and Dean had loved her, and she had been truly happy with him... once. If they were married, there had to still be something there. She was going to find that spark and blow on it until it lit a fire. This was like five years ago when she couldn't see what was staring her in the face.   
Yes, she was sure she loved Dean. Of COURSE she loved Dean.  
Of course that was before Jess came and stomped on the spark.   
So why was she in a car with him? Driving away from her husband when she should be with him, starting over, soothing his fears? She loved HIM, after all.  
She was with Jess in her mothers car on a road that could've been in Canada for all she knew of their location.   
Oh yes, she loved Dean. She knew she loved Dean. It was perfectly right that she told Dean she loved him, because she did love him. She did. Yes, she loved him. He was her husband, after all. Why wouldn't she love her husband?  
"Rory..." came the voice next to her.  
"Don't say anything to me, Jess," she said evenly. Calm and cool. She wasn't going to explode. That would start a fight. And what she wanted now was to put distance between them. And every fight she'd had with Jess had led her closer to him.  
"I won't after this, I promise."  
"What is it, then?" trying to make her voice as stone like as possible.  
"You see, the car..."  
She was thrown back into her seat as the wheels grabbed onto the concrete and the engine shut off.  
"Is out of gas," she finished.   
  
She opened the door and jumped out. He followed her wordlessly. They each went in opposite directions down the road and called out, searched the night for signs of life. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks and she felt as the wind froze them on her skin. It was colder here. She rubbed her arms and wished that she'd taken the time to pack before she ran away.  
Jess came up behind her and slipped his jacket over her shoulders. She took it without and word and looked up at him. He was staring off into the woods.   
"What are we going to do?" she asked.  
"We are going to talk."  
She glared at him. He ignored the glare and sat down on the hard, cold ground. She reluctantly sank to eye level.   
"Where should we start?" she asked.  
"Why you didn't tell me that you were married," he was looking straight at her and she tried to focus on exactly what reason she could make up for not telling him that would sound reasonable. She shifted uncomfortably.  
"We're in the middle of some highway... maybe we should..."  
"Start somewhere else? All right. Why did you marry Dean?"  
"Now that one isn't any of your business," she snapped, silently thanking anyone from making him switch topics.  
"To bad for me. Tell me."   
"No."  
"Rory, we are desperately lost in the middle of no where. Now, if we both get eaten by bears, won't you be happy that you died with that terrible weight off your chest?" sarcastic voice.  
"It's not a terrible weight why I married Dean. Why would it be a terrible weight?" on afterthough she barked, "and we aren't going to be eaten by bears,"   
"Okay, we'll starve to death."  
"We're not going to starve."  
"Get run over by a car?"  
"No."  
"Die of boredom?"  
"You have a book in your pocket," she leaned forward and tapped it.  
"Ah-ha. We'll kill each other in hopes of solving all our problems."  
"How would that solve our problems?"  
"You won't have someone breathing down your neck while you read the book. And I have this strange feeling you really want to kill me," she tried to intensify your glare, "yes, for some reason your beautiful eyes seem to be sending that message."  
"You're off topic, Mr. Mariano."  
"This is more fun than talking about serious stuff."  
"Good. Then we can make you suffer."  
"All right. Why'd you marry Dean? Why didn't you tell me you did?"  
She looked away, "I married Dean because I loved him."  
"Right."  
"Please. Like you know anything about how I felt for Dean. You were gone for a year. I did get a chance to change in that time."  
"You told me it wasn't working out."  
"And then it did over the course of the year."  
"Did he cry when you dumped him?"  
"I didn't dump him."  
"You did. And then he panicked and proposed."  
"That is NOT true! We got married during college!"   
He smiled, "so he wanted to keep you to himself, so he proposed, and you were forced to leave your school."  
"Wrong," she lied.  
"Well, I went back to New York and became a reporter."  
"You went back to New York and moved in with a senior platinum blonde."  
He looked at her. She put a hand to her mouth then crumpled into the road.   
"And I spent my whole time there Writing To Rory," he said softly.  
All she wanted to do was melt. She wished fiercely for the powers of the Wicked Witch of the West... and then she wished for rain.  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth Jess."  
"Sorry, schmorry. Why's the question. That's interrogative. Explain. No yes or no."  
"I was afraid that you'd leave," she said quickly and loudly.   
If a bear was to eat me now, I'd be happy I said that.  
He didn't speak for a while, "I wasn't going to."  
"Not until you found out I was married."  
"Maybe it would've been different if you'd told me in the beginning."  
"I'm sorry, okay?"  
"Whatever."  
She frowned, "I can't get two whatever's in one day. That's just not fair!"  
"Well, Rory, a lot of things aren't fair!"  
She stood up and marched to the jeep. She pulled the door open, jumped inside, and slammed it.   
He stared at the door for a while. Then he walked to the jeep and climbed in. She was lying across the back seat, asleep and shivering. He threw a blanket (so conveniently stashed under his seat) over her and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on the seat. He fell asleep during his trials.  
  
She woke up and dropped the corner of blanket she was holding. Wiping her eyes, she rose slowly and hit her head on the jeep.  
"I didn't used to be that tall," she mumbled, falling out of the back seat and wrapping the blanket around her as she stumbled out of the jeep. Jess was up and about, leaning against the back of the car eating a sandwich. He handed her one and she took it and bit out of the side before speaking.  
"Where'd you find this?"  
"Trunk."  
"Not sure I if I should eat it."  
"Give it to me than. I'm famished."  
She woke up and protectively clenched her food, "nuh-uh. The man gives the lady his sandwich, that's what is says in 'Essential Etiquette of Being Lost on the Road with Someone You Are Fighting With.'"  
He stared at her for a second, "I never read it."  
"You should."  
"Since I've never read it I am in no way entitled to forfeit my sandwich."  
"Half of it."  
"No."  
"One third."  
"Doesn't it say somewhere in that book of yours that to get lost on the road with someone you're fighting with is a stupid thing to do because if you're fighting they are most likely not going to readily give up their sandwich to the person they are fighting with?"  
"Ahh. So you're trying to confuse me. You can't confuse a Gilmore."  
"No."  
"Can I please have just a bit of your sandwich?"  
"No."  
"Okay, you either give me sandwich or you give me coffee."  
He disappeared into the jeep for a few seconds and came out holding a bottle of something. It was unlabeled and she suspiciously sipped it. Under normal circumstances she would've inquired as to it's contents, but a caffeine-deprived Gilmore is an unpredictable force.  
The taste arrived in her mouth and her deadened taste buds screamed for her to shove the horrendous thing out of her mouth. She most happily spit it out at it's supplier.  
Jess, drenched in orange juice, simply looked at her.   
"What is this?" she demanded, tossing the bottle in his direction and not caring as more splashed out and hit him.   
"It's called juice. You should try it sometime."  
"Juice. Not an experience I care to repeat. I thought I'd made it clear before that..."  
He rolled his eyes and interrupted, "these are the only clothes I have."  
"Punishment for decieve-ment."  
She opened the jeep door and went in, but not before giving him a devilish smile.  
  
The light flickered again. In the woods. He wouldn't have noticed it, maybe it wasn't there... but there it was again.  
"Jess!" Rory called.  
He was embarrassed by how quickly he dashed to her side. But the door was open and he found a hysterical Rory, hands slapping the steering wheel.   
"Jess! We have no food! No food and no gas and no anything! We're going to die!"  
"We're not going to die, Rory. Someone is going to drive along this road and..."  
"We're going to starve! Or get eaten by BEARS! Or kill each other! What if we kill each other and go insane..."  
"Wouldn't it be the other way around?"  
"...and grow our hair down our knees and don't bathe and have black teeth and long yellow fingernails and live in the woods and make a home out of the jeep and become the hermits of nowhereroad!"  
"They could write a book about us."   
"And we'll die and no one will know about us!"  
"Did you have big dreams in mind?"  
"You know I did! This is all..." she looked around and her flashing eyes fell on him, "your fault! It's all your fault!"  
"How so?" he had to keep calm. Maybe he could make Rory shut up if he just kept his head. Two panicking people would not do much good.  
"You made my life go bad!"  
"Your life isn't something that I can just completely alter. It's like milk. If it's left out to long, it's going to go bad eventually."  
"I was fine 'til you came along! I had a nice, steady, routine," she was taking breaths now. Her hands had stopped flailing, "and then you come and decide that my life isn't bad enough. You decide that you have to ruin my marriage."  
"Rory, no one deserves that kind of marriage. You're not making sense."  
"I am too making sense!" she stamped her foot on the jeep floor so hard that the snowman sitting on the dashboard shook, "Dean and I were fine. We weren't star crossed lovers, but we were just fine."  
"You were miserable."  
"I WAS FINE!"  
"Then why did you lie to me?"  
She started crying and made a small choking noise before inching away from him into the passenger seat, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."  
"Rory..."  
She stepped lightly out of the car and walked down the road. He exhaled. She turned around, most likely to give him a 'what have you done to me?' guilt-trip-ing, pitiful look. He didn't give her the opportunity.  
He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the road, then down a slope into the woods.  
  
She didn't bother to ask where they were going. She allowed him to pull her limp body along with him through the trees and branches. She felt numb and barely noticed the stinging slap of the dead twigs.  
He stopped running abruptly at the base of the slope and she fell into his back. He pulled her up by the wrists and placed her in front of him. His chin rested on the top of her head and he placed his hands over her eyes. Her eyelashes brushed against his palms and he began to walk forward, forcing her to stumble blindly and finally cry out in exasperation,  
"Where are we?"  
He removed his hands.  
She caught her breath at the sight before her.  
It was an old cabin, the window panes falling out of the logs and the glass shattered. There was a white sign hanging over the door that read, "Holiday 24/7", and a few christmas lights hung in the windows. The snow wouldn't fall here for another week, so the panes of glass were sprayed with fake snow that was peeling off and had arranged at the base of the cabin in a sloppy pile. Through the windows was a diner, lit with a soft and sickening yellow candlelight color. A giant christmas tree sat in the corner, overly decorated with tinsel and lights and ornaments. There were flickering christmas lights hung around and inside the diner, and a huge bunch had been thrown over the "Holiday 24/7" sign stuck in the ground a few feet away.   
Laughter drifted out from inside.  
She looked up at Jess. But he simply gave a mock bow, pushed open the screen door, and pointed a hand inside.  
Rory looked up at him and made a slight sound of protest. He shrugged and walked in, and she dashed in after him before the door swung shut behind them.  
  
The scrambled words of a christmas carol burst in their ears. An old radio seemed to be the source of the noise, and it was blaring out static. The only legible sounds were the words "christmas" and "year".   
They wandered farther into the place that seemed to be a living, breathing, Hallmark card gone bad. Several plastic Santa's with jiggling bellies adorned the corners and a life-size glass reindeer with a blinking red nose sat in front of the kitchen. Under the tree were gnomes wearing Santa hats and turned up shoes, a present rocking unsteadily in their outstretched hands. Once she got closer, Rory could see each present was wrapped in Happy Birthday wrapping paper.  
She slowly turned to Jess, "this is the most hideous diner I have ever been to."   
She then eagerly sat down at one of the picnic tables.  
"I know," he smiled, "Luke would've had a heart attack at it's pure cheesiness."  
"How did you find this place?" she asked suspiciously.  
"I saw lights from the road and I was sick of being lost," he smiled again and passed the menu from across the table. Red and green with caroling and frightening cabbage patch-like children painted at the top.   
In an instant, two elderly people dressed like elves were at the table. They sang a chorus of "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" and bowed, time enough for the two guests to see that, under the sagging hats, were two women with smiling faces.  
"It truly is, isn't it?" one remarked to the other as soon as they'd finished, "I mean, beginning to look a lot like Christmas." She turned to address Jess and Rory, "the customers start pouring in around this time of year, they won't come when it's not Christmas, they say that it's not genuine enough. Well, Jenny and I decorated this place ourselves, and if it isn't genuine enough for the mess of people that live around here, that's their problem. But you're here, and only at the beginning of winter. You're such darlings. No charge for our first customers of the season!" she cried, clapping her frail hands. Rory couldn't help but smile.  
"Thank you..." she began to decline, but was interrupted.  
"It's our pleasure, dearie," the other one said, waving off her remark with a toss of her 'beringed' fingers, "we do love seeing young couples. Warms our hearts."  
Neither of them assured Ms. Jenny that she was right.  
But neither of them corrected.  
After ordering the only seemingly appetizing thing on the menu (two cokes), Rory laid her hand on top of Jess'.  
"Thank you... for this sickening place, and for being here."  
He didn't look at her, "this menu sounds like you cooked it," he remarked as his eyes rapidly scanned the items.  
"Seriously. Thanks."  
He looked up, "you're welcome, Rory."   
The two "elves" began to carol, as Rory Gilmore and Jess Mariano sat across from each other at a picnic table in a deserted diner in a place they were soon to discover the name of.  
And so it was to the tune of "Jingle Bells" that their lives abruptly righted themselves, and to the same tune that they finally - without words - admitted what had been on their minds for a very long time.  
Almost six years, in fact.  
  
  
****Okay, now, you must tell me what you think. I was away all weekend last weekend so I didn't get to review but starting TUESDAY I will be LA QUEEN DE REVIEWING! But please tell me what you thought of this chapter... good, bad, really bad, *hopeful* really good? Well, I'm fine with anything you say! I won't hate if you say it's bad... I'll love you for reveiwing it in the first place! And sorry it took me so long to update! 


	14. Final Answers

Final Answers  
By: ZLizabeth  
  
DONE AT LAST!  
  
Author's Note: Wow. Last chapter. Last chance to review. PLEASE DO! And another thing: I did not want to make this to much of an L/L, and so please don't attack with comments on that. Don't kill me. I just wanted to give a bit more flavoring to Lorelai's life in Stars Hollow after Rory left since I did do Lane's. And I know it's pathetic L/L writing, but bear with me, please. I am afraid I do not have the definite... passion... for L/L that I have for R/J. Not that I don't want Luke and Lorelai together. It's just I REALLY am a Literati, and I would not be that concerned if Lorelai does end up marrying Christopher (though I do hope she doesn't start things up with Max again. Did NOT like him).  
  
Lane Kim ran a finger down the list of guests. The name under maid of honor had been hastily scribbled as "Lorelai Gilmore."  
"Lane, why are you still awake?" Pete groaned, coming down into the kitchen and seeing his fiancé staring at their wedding plans under the dim light of a single lamp, "we're getting married in a week! You can't be staying up this late every night! You'll be falling asleep as you walk down the aisle!"  
"This is important!" she said wearily, "I think..." she hesitated and looked up at Pete, as if she needed an answer from him on whatever was plaguing her.  
"What is it?" he asked, sitting down next to her.   
She stood up and began opening the cupboard doors, standing on her toes to search inside, "have you seen my blue address book? That old one from when I was seventeen with the picture of Eminem on the front?"  
"Uh..." he opened up their freezer and pulled out something, "this one?"  
She snatched it out of his fingers and brushed off ice, not at all caring about it's unusual location. She thumbed through it until she found the number.  
Sitting down at the table, she took their phone and began to dial rapidly. Pete placed a hand on her shoulder, "what is it, Lane?"  
"I just..." she smiled as the phone began to ring, "I think that I have the wrong Lorelai Gilmore as my maid of honor."   
To say the least, her dear Pete was confused, "You don't want Lorelai Gilmore? But she's so..."  
"She's just..." her voice faded off as the rings continued. To many rings. What if this wasn't her number any more? The tears returned to her eyes as she saw her best friend standing next to her fiancé, small and forcing a smile. Taking the cellphone Lorelai held out, "so I can talk to you anytime. It has to be on constantly..." Rory had just nodded, but taken it.  
"But you said that she was like your other mother while you were growing up?" Pete was still blabbing. Poor guy never liked it when Lane went into one of her strange Gilmoresque periods of time - not answering questions, doing things that are seemingly out of nowhere, leaving sentences unfinished......  
"Yes. But her daughter..." she had begun to answer but...  
A voice came through on the other end. The same childish light voice that she hadn't heard since the day a few years ago at the bus stop, "Hello?"  
Lane breathed out, "hi. Rory?"  
  
Lorelai entered the diner with the most unusual craving for coffee.   
"LUKE!" she called.  
He didn't appear at the door. She entered anyway and sat at the counter, drumming her fingers until he almost fell down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.  
He went to make coffee and didn't talk until she had downed her first mug, "why so late, Lorelai? Why always so late?"  
"I think I've figured out why I like coffee so much," was her answer.  
"Why?" he asked, yawning.  
"Whenever I want coffee, something wonderful is happening somewhere in the world. Someone is intensely happy and that makes me want coffee. It's a great burden I carry, Luke. You just have to support the happy people in the world. Are you so selfish that you don't want them to be happy - even if it is at an odd hour?"  
"That is one of the most unoriginal excuses you have ever come up with for wanting coffee."  
"Well it's late," she said in defense of herself as he poured her more, "my brilliant mind has not begun it's brilliant thinking yet," she watched him for a moment, "Jess visited me the other day."  
Luke's eyes snapped open, "what?"  
"He borrowed my jeep."   
"To...?"   
"See Rory."  
She never mentioned Rory. Luke's voice softened, "oh. Did you tell him..."  
"About Dean? No."   
"Ah."  
"Ah is right. Now he's going to be miserable and in my carelessness and misery I have made another miserable!"   
"You're miserable?"  
She looked up at him, "aren't you?"  
"Pretty much. Rory made you Lorelai. I think the absence of Lorelai is what's making me miserable."  
She smiled at him and gave a snorted laugh into her coffee, "well, I'll admit that there was something that kept me from jumping off a bridge," he looked at her, "Luke..." she paused for a moment and studied the man who she had known for quite a long time that she loved. He loved her too. The man that kept from ever being in a real relationship except for the strange one she had with him. The relationship they had that was so strange yet perfect. She finished, "...'s coffee."  
"I'm touched," silence, "I actually miss that kid."  
"Suddenly opening the Rory door is opening lots of other doors?"   
"You get to talk about your daughter, I get to talk about my nephew."   
"Shall we cry together over our lost little kidlets?"  
"I just wish..." obviously this conversation was not something Luke found easy, "I wish that... he liked me more," he shrugged, "but I don't care. I didn't love him like you loved Rory."  
"Is that your final answer?" she asked.  
"No," he admitted.  
"He liked you, Luke."  
"Sure."  
She sighed, "I'm not going to continue this, since you're just fishing for sympathy."  
"Lorelai, you know how you always felt you had something in Rory that was always there for you to love and loved you back, even when things weren't exactly jumping on top of tables and tap-dancing?" she bit her lip and nodded. That she missed.  
"The unconditional love."  
"Yea. I just felt like when I had a family member... someone younger... I might be able to have that someone who does love you and who you can love back because you care about them so much. And I fought for it so hard, but I guess I didn't do it right."  
"He loved you, Luke. But Rory's a girl. Girls are allowed to love that. Bad boys aren't."  
"There were a few times - when we were arguing - that I was actually scared of how much he understood me. I thought maybe that meant something. And when we stopped being mad, I just felt so happy that I had that tiny little fraction of love back in my life. And this sounds so wrong and I am never going to talk when I am half-asleep ever again."   
"I love you, Luke."  
She had always wondered what his reaction to that would be. But what he did now most definitely shocked her the most.  
He smiled.  
And then he opened his mouth to say it back but she interrupted, not sure how ready she was to hear it from him, "coffee! coffee! I think that two people in this world are very happy right now! I need coffee!"  
He refilled the mug, "I wonder who they are."  
  
Jess and Rory's eyes hadn't moved for what seemed like hours. She wanted to stay exactly as she was for a very long time more. This was different then anything. It was like sitting with her mother on the couch, not doing anything but basking in the other's presence. She had never done this with anyone else before. She hadn't thought it possible.   
She wondered what would happen if she kissed him. Was she allowed to kiss him? Was this moment trying to tell her that the love between her and Jess should be the love of a brother and a sister. For with her mom she felt the sweet bonds of sisterhood... she wanted her head to shut up. She didn't care about what was right and wrong. She'd spent to much time in her life debating what the next move would be. She was content now to be with him - not watch or stare or smile at like she would with someone else, just *be* with - in a small diner in the middle of nowhere.   
Her hand was still on top of his. The diner's radiator wasn't working, it seemed, and the only warmth she felt was the air in-between their hands. She didn't mind the cold as long as she had that precious oxegon hovering between her fingers and his.   
And then her phone rang.   
The sound made her jump slightly in her seat. It was coming from the small bag that she always carried - it usually just had the book that she slipped in when she woke up. It had no book now - just the little cellphone that her mother had given her... God knows how long ago. It was always on, but it had never rung before. She'd never even used it before. She'd forgotten a while ago that it was even there. She had notes on her mirror at home to charge it again, but it was only then that she remembered it.   
Jess had raised an eyebrow. A "if you had a cellphone we could've called for help when we were lost" look was being directed at her. But it wasn't smug. It was more of - relief? That she hadn't realized, because then they wouldn't have come here and...  
She grabbed the phone - ringing madly to the tune of "These Lazy Hazy Crazy Days". She gave a hollow laugh. So her mom had been trying to send her a message when she went away, trying to remind of her of that nightmarish festival, trying to make her realize something, or at least rethink her engagement to Bag Boy. To late for that. She pushed it against her ear.   
"Hello?"   
"Hi. Rory?"   
The voice was so familiar and it killed Rory that she couldn't remember it. She knew she should remember it. She didn't speak for a moment, and the door finally opened, and the memories flowed out.  
"L-Lane?"  
"Hi."  
"Hi."  
"Hi."  
"Hello."  
"Hello..."  
What was there to say? How are you? The friendship between the two girls had been strong - and then yanked away once Rory got on the bus to the airport.   
A tear escaped her eye. Her voice left her and Jess reached across and wrapped his fingers around the phone. Her grip fell away and he spoke - the obvious concern for Rory in his voice - in her place.  
"Hello Lane." The two elves had stopped their caroling to eavesdrop on their customers.   
The surprised voice of the woman in Stars Hollow echoed throughout the silent diner, "who is *this*?"  
"Guess."   
"Jess?"  
"Yes," Lane didn't speak. Rory wasn't looking in any particular direction. Her eyes stared ahead, unfocused and brimming with tears, at a plastic santa. He tried to end the dear reunion so that he could talk to her, "why did you call?"  
"Well... I was... um..." the other voice in place of Rory's had obviously confused her, "wondering if Rory would like to be my maid of honor?"  
"You're getting married?"   
"Yea."  
Rory snapped out of her trance. All she had been thinking about was how she had forgotten Lane's voice. And now Lane was married and she hadn't hear about it. She had told Lane about her first kiss and they had squealed together - but now she was married - a bit more important than first kiss - and she didn't know about it.  
"When?" he was asking.  
"Next Sunday."  
"When should we be there?"  
Rory looked up at him. There was the we again. She managed a smile.   
"If you could be here in... about... two days?"  
"Sure, we'll be there," he said quickly, "g-"  
"Okay..." the disappointment in her voice made his worry for Rory dim for a second.  
"Look, Lane, Rory's just not... feeling well. She'll call you tomorrow and you two can have your ya ya's."  
"all right," that satisfied her, "goodbye Jess."  
"Bye."  
He handed the phone to Rory and she looked up. He looked at her. She didn't take the phone. To much looking. He wanted to talk to her but still, Rory and Jess just looked at each other. Forgiveness wasn't necessary right now. The precious air had flown away way Rory's hand had flown from Jess to her bag. The hardest thing, it seemed, was to start a conversation.  
"So, where are we going to go from here?" Jess ignored the question at first. She had said we. Like it's natural. Like we exists now.  
"I don't know," he quickly tried to cover up the pure lameness of that, "Stars Hollow?"   
Rory caught her breath, "I don't know if I want to. I haven't been there in so long and I don't know how my mother would react to seeing me without Dean and I haven't spoken to anyone there in awhile and I'm afraid that she won't love me anymore," that came out fast.   
He almost laughed. The idea of the two Gilmore's not being the most linked creatures on the earth, the idea of Lorelai not being as protective and loving as a lioness, the idea of Rory actually being able to escape their strange mother/daughter bond... that was lost on him. But Rory was actually crying - again.   
She was crying and it tore him apart. His body had been scattered along the road from Salsville to Holiday 24/7 with her guilt-wrenching, soul-tearing tears.   
But in a way her tears comforted him. It meant that he could jump through that open window and actually be able to hold her.   
And that's what he did, "Rory, Lane wants you to be her maid of honor. I think that you should go. This means a lot to Lane."  
Of course, just as she had turned to cry into his jacket, her cellphone rang again.   
Honestly, it didn't shake him in the least. Fate had been against the idea of him and Rory for a long time. But who said Fate knew anything about anyone?   
Rory leaned against him as she spoke. He pulled her close and smiled out into the woods, and at all the stupid hollow plastic Santa's with beanbag stomachs. Rory was his at this perfect perfect moment. And no matter how much destiny and the all-powerful forces of the universe tried to rip her away, he was going to hold on.  
"Hello..." Rory's expression turned from that delicate, tired half-smile that had appeared when she let herself fall away from her "old life" into a mix of delight and shock,   
"Lane?"  
"Yes, it's me again. Rory, I miss you so much and you are NOT going to get away with not talking to me for a whole day! And where are you? And how are things? And why did Jess answer the phone? And why..."  
He kissed the top of her head. And she tilted her face up and smiled. So it was Lane and two diner owners who had to maintain respectful silence for a minute while Rory and Jess had their third yet most official kiss.  
  
The divorce of Rory Gilmore and Dean Hart [a/n: NAME PLEASE!] went quietly. Rory only had to see Dean once or twice, and every time she refused to let Jess stand behind her. She said it would be like rubbing it in that she had left him and that he wasn't good enough and that she thought Jess was better. For, she had told Jess, even though he was a strong factor in their third breakup, there were many other reasons that she and Dean were never going to work. And she was not going to flaunt all of them in his face.  
Rory returned to Stars Hollow on the arm of one of the only deliliquent's the small town had ever known. It remained unchanged. Lane's was the perfect wedding. And the reunion of the Gilmore's was - to sum it up while leaving out many screams and laughs and tears - heartwarming. The most perfect Disney scene to end a movie.   
Except that was not the end.  
  
*~*~*~  
  
For the story I have told you, oh reader that will never be, is mainly about me. Though I'll admit that I can never hope to be as important in Rory's life as Lorelai, I am quite a prominent figure. The loud whispers that had been centered around the relationship of the two town bookworms had been on hold for five years. Once Rory was seen standing next to me, it was if we'd never left. The blood of the gossip topic began circulating and Rory was left to smile at me sideways.   
Thank God the Stars Hollow Folk had some respect. The Bag Boy subject was not mentioned in front of Rory, save for some midnight talks between the mother and daughter (on which I did not eavesdrop, but simply know of because... well, it's really none of your business).   
I visited Luke a day after Lane's wedding. I'll admit mine were not the most honorable intentions - I needed a place to sleep and I was basically going to beg it from him. But he offered it to me almost right away. I guess I wasn't as subtle as I thought. Or maybe it's just some family thing. I haven't had to much of a family and I guess I wasn't sure exactly what the strange relationship Luke and I had could be defined as. Normal? Abnormal? I find it doesn't matter. We are both fine with it.   
I loved Rory about a day into knowing her. And I love her more today. Thank God (again) that no one will ever read this, as it would not be good for my aging heart if I knew such junk from me was loose in the general public.   
I see her every day. Every day I am the one who gets to brush her hair out of her face and kiss her.   
But still I end every night by Writing To Rory, while she sleeps about two feet away from my desk.  
  
  
THE END  
  
***Okay, you must review! Even though it is short and bad and rushed, I still would love to hear it! PLEASE!  
Oh, and did you notice for all the kisses she was STILL with Dean? I wonder if that's how it's going to be in the upcoming episodes... another "thing" with Jess while she's still with Dean. Okay, so I know, I read the spoilers. But maybe you don't so I won't wreck it! And that is a real question I had before I read the spoilers! May be true, may not be...  
Oh, and please review! 


	15. The Complete Writing To Rory, Pt 1

Rory and Jess have gone five years without each other. Miserable sums it up. But soon their paths will cross again, and this time maybe they both won't screw it up... I wrote this during the summer after S2 finale based on spoilers for 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.  
  
The Complete Writing To Rory  
  
Chapter One: Your Face Stares Out Of The Caffeine   
  
~If there was to be a story about my life it would have to begin with a disclaimer. DISCLAIMER: My life isn't mine. It belongs to some idiot who can't write for his life. Or her life. Either way, the one who's controlling what's happening to me is some jerk that doesn't seem to want anything good to happen to me. It like he wants me to be one of those people in books that start off with people who won't ever amount to anything, and they have a dream to become more then what life has in store for them and all sorts of crap like that. Except I've been spared the crap. Come to think of it, I wouldn't at all mind crap every now and then. I've been living off reused lines for the past five years.   
I've always been messing up. Somewhere along the line I realized that it wasn't possible for someone to mess up this much and still be real. I decided that I'm someone's puppet and they'd been giving me all the trash that's happened to me... and what I've done to myself. Or what they've made me do to myself. Or what....  
  
Disclaimer: My life isn't mine. I don't belong to me. I belong to someone else. Believe me, if this life was mine, I would've done some major plot changing.  
  
But of course it's not mine, and I keep on getting the same plots and meeting the same characters... oh, they're never the same but all that's ever really different is the hair color. I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time...  
I suppose my writers think that it's funny to have me like this. Wake up. Have a glass of orange juice. Attempt to live through the day. End the day with orange juice. You're thinking I'm pathetic because I live on orange juice. Well I'm not. It's Tropicana.   
It must be lovely having a puppet.   
I'm twenty-two and I'm living in an apartment building in Manhattan, New York. I'm twenty-two and my roommate is a sixty-year-old woman who dies her hair blonde and pretends she's twenty. I'm twenty-two and all I drink is orange juice (Tropicana). I'm twenty-two and my life ended when I was three. I'm twenty-two and my life began again when I was seventeen. Then ended a year later.   
I know what you're thinking, Pathetic. You try having a producer. And get a thesaurus. Pathetic twice in a few paragraphs is.... pathetic.  
  
Maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe I am trying to come off as insane. But I'm telling all the basic truths.  
You're a sensible person. You can take everything I've said and separate facts and fantasies, you can tone down until you reach the truth. So we'll skip over analyzing and explaining. We'll go straight to what's important. My life sucks. It really always has. My early years: tragic, sad. My preteen years: tragic, sad. My teen years: tragic, sad. Oh, and they sucked. That explains everything you need to know.   
  
I had lived in New York City for as long as I could remember. I have no idea if I was born there, as I could never press my parents for details. Or my parent, once the dear old prize that Liz (mommy) picked up at Der Wienerschnitzel left us in a one-bedroom apartment with cigarettes and each other. Liz was just thrilled that she now had a bad-boy fifteen year old to handle, to bail from jail, to get in the way when she dated. When I was seventeen, my mom got fed up with me. Sometimes I can tell myself that she did it because she didn't want me to turn out like she did. But only at night. At night my shell melts away. But during the day I'm sure that she just wanted to get rid of me.  
One morning I woke up and my mom said to me, "pack." She had bags under her eyes and she looked... happy. Some ghost of joy was reflected in those dark, lifeless orbs. I still don't understand what made her happy. Shell up says: no more Jess! whoopee! Let's hold hands and skip after he gets on the bus! No shell says: her son is getting out of Brooklyn, her son's going to have a second chance.  
She was my mother, I loved her. Seeing her the teeniest bit happy made me shut up and do what she asked.  
I packed.  
She took me to the bus and then told me where I was going, "you're going to live in Stars Hollow with your uncle."   
Then she gave me a hug - she didn't hug much and this one wasn't great - and left.   
Talking about Stars Hollow is not something I do under normal circumstances. It's not painful.... The best year of my life, yes. Made that by Rory Gilmore.   
I loved Rory.  
Since this is none of your business and if you're reading this you really shouldn't be, as I've written this for no one, I won't elaborate. Let's just say things didn't work out.  
  
~  
  
"Jess!" He spun around and saw her. Her eyes were shining and he almost opened his arms to fragile girl who's huge blue eyes were illuminated by the dim glow of a reflecting street sign from outside. Kiss her, just one last time. But he couldn't do that.  
"Hey," was all he said.   
"I need to talk to you," the light was bouncing off her eyes. They were filled with tears.  
"Sure."  
"Why are you..." she swallowed. Each time the fluorescent bulbs lit up those sapphire's and he saw the tears, he hated himself. Why did he do this? She didn't deserve it, Rory didn't deserve anything bad, "why are you with Shane?"  
"Hmm, let me think. All summer, that means two months," he added, loading his gun with as many bullets as it could take, "first week, no letter. No call. So, Rory, I think you mean, 'why didn't Jess sit around and mope for six weeks, just waiting for a girl who kissed him and ran off to come home and finally decide want she wants... which might take another six months and it's possible that he might not be included in the final decision. Why?" he was mad now, and the voice that had begged him to take Rory in his arms and kiss her was rapidly decreasing it's volume, "the girl who - even though he'd made it clear that he liked - had told him in her own little innocent ways that she loved some floppy haired bag boy? Some idiot who didn't even have a reason to be with her? The girl who'd made it clear she wanted not me, but Dean," he was dropping subtleties... not like there was any use for them, "I'm not Dean, Rory, and that's why you liked me. So I'm not going to act like him and sit around with no life until my sweet Rory returns. You didn't write. You didn't tell me you were leaving. You kissed Dean in front of me right after you kissed me. Doesn't give me the best reasons to be with you. To wait around."  
"It wasn't a real kiss, Jess. The Dean kiss. It was a 'hey, hi,' how did you I didn't break up with him? You could've called me."  
"I didn't know that you were supposed to be my top priority."  
"Maybe I'm playing hard to get!"   
"You've been playing hard to get with me for a year! I figured you wanted me to back off. Oh, speaking of backing off, by the way, aren't you still with Dean?"  
"Maybe I don't want to be with you anymore!" she said quickly, jumping away from Dean.  
"You know this isn't about us! It's about Dean! Are you still with him?" suddenly he stopped talking. Her mouth was opening and closing. His tone softer, he took her by the shoulders and looked straight at her, "are you?"  
She stared down at the floor and then managed a grin through her heavy flowing tears, "if I wasn't," she whispered, "would you like to go out sometime?"  
"Rory, are you?"  
She leaned against the shelf and rested her forehead against the cheap metal, "yes."  
He dropped her shoulders and stopped the intense stare, "great."  
She looked up and her pink lips parted, but he turned and stormed out of the store, received an annoyed call from Taylor about slamming doors. All he could hear was his own stupidity pounding in his ears, never should've moved back, never should've moved back.  
  
~  
  
All right, so once the pen gets going, it's hard to stop writing. I've told you, oh reader who will never be, far more than you need to know.  
Rory and I were perfect for each other. We both loved to read... and we had tastes that were similar enough and different enough that we had the most glorious debates and discussions. Rory was the first one I could ever talk to. Rory was the only one who looked past that I outlined "dead" bodies in chalk, that I stole donations from little boxes. That I took a gnome. And Rory made me want to stop stealing, stop being a 'bad boy'. Actually, Rory made me want to do about anything that would make me more desirable in her eyes. That is why I took the things, I know. All I wanted was her.   
But she had a boyfriend.  
So? was all I really thought of that until she made it all clear to me that we were just friends.   
I wanted much more than that.  
And then when she kissed me, what did I do? Find myself a making-out partner. Not even a girlfriend. Just a sleazy un-Stars Hollow-ish type. Why? I don't know. Ask my writers. They're the ones who snatched the Rory character and put her in Washington. Were they trying to test me then?  
Well, I failed the test.  
After the fight, Rory made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. I managed to live a month without her and then left.   
Sometimes I think about what happened to her. She probably went to Harvard and now has a nice boyfriend who can stand Ayn Rand. Who waits outside her classes every day to escort her to her dorm. Kisses her goodnight, doesn't sneak into her room, is liked by everybody - especially the matriarch of the Gilmore Household, Lorelai. Sort a version of her old boyfriend with a brain this time.  
It's no good wondering. She deserves the good life she no doubt has, and I deserve my roommate, the platinum blonde. I deserve everything I've gotten.   
But if I knew that if I was the perfect little twenty-two year old they would write Rory back in, believe me, the very tone of my voice would be sickly sweet.~  
  
Jess walked into his apartment. June was sitting in his reading chair. Ignoring the woman he sat down on top of her and began to read, scribbling notes every now and then.  
"So, sweetie, how was work?"  
He underlined a word.   
"Where do you work again?"  
He circled this paragraph.  
"Jess, do you want me to get up?"  
"You think?" he mumbled, still not tearing his eyes from the page.  
"Okay honey."  
He rolled off her lap onto the chair as she stood up. She cast him a patronizing look he ignored, "Jess, I need your opinion on something."  
"Work was fine, I work at Strictly Coffee and," he glanced up before dropping his eyes back to the world of Hemmingway, "you need to re-dye your hair."  
She nervously primped it, "do you really think so?"   
He got up and walked into his room, slamming the door.   
So was his life.  
  
Rory,   
It's amazing how much you can miss someone that you love... even after five years. Of course I regret what I did to you - how I spoke on our last two meetings - every day. Of course you probably regret ever kissing me in the first place and being unfaithful to your dear bag boy, so there's really no point in sending this. I'm not going to.   
Every day I have my little things to remind me of you. Strictly Coffee has that aroma that so enticed you and brought you to Luke's diner every day. With every cup I fill I think of your face. Ah, yes, this is Rory love poetry. What should I call it? Your Face Stares Out Of The Caffeine?   
Today June tried to act like a mother again. Caring wasn't one of the things my mom did best, so I'm not sure June's doing it right. Maybe you could tell me how Lorelai does it.  
My life is pretty much as bitter as that coffee stuff you love so much. Do you know that all I drink is orange juice? My life has been pitiful since you left it. But you know that.  
- Jess  
  
He gave the paper a faint smile and put it in the Rory Pile. He'd been writing letters to her for four years now. The Rory Pile was a big box by now. He addressed each letter to where she used to live. He almost laughed as he thought of what might happen if Lorelai read all these letters.   
Between pouring coffee, his joke autobiography, and writing the letters to Rory he would never send, his life was reading. Books had always been there for him. They were there now. But even books didn't hold all the comfort they used to. With each word he was forced to think of Rory.   
He never really knew if he loved thinking of her bent over a book, only a few strands of hair falling into her face... or couldn't stand it. Because he could never be there to brush the few locks of deep chocolate hair away and pass his fingertips lightly over the skin on her face.  
And though he told himself every day and he knew that life without Rory Gilmore was rueful, worthless, and pointless for him, he never let himself say that he missed her.   
That would really be to much of saying that it was his fault she was gone.   
And he had to blame that on the producers of his life.  
  
Miles and miles away, she was washing dishes.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Two: Washing Dishes   
  
  
"I'm home!"   
Not even a Rory darling, she thought, scrubbing the white china so hard she was sure it would break. Let it break. I hope it breaks.   
"Hey! Ror!" her husband entered. She flashed him a smile then went back to the dishes. He came over and kissed her lightly before she shoved him away.  
"I'm doing the dishes."  
"I can see that Rory. Just because you're the smart Harvard girl, doesn't mean I'm just plain old stupid."   
"You don't have to rub it in about Harvard."  
"What? You went for a year, didn't you?"  
"Sure I did. Before that little event, that is. Or didn't you hear? I stayed there for a year before I left."  
"Rory..." the man collapsed into one of their few chairs, "please not n..."   
"That's right. I decided I wanted something closer to home. So didn't I go to Yale? Nice school, wasn't it. But didn't something prevent me from continuing my education..."  
"Rory, no. No. No."  
"Dean, I've put everything on the line for you. I moved to California with you because you said that you'd have something for me here. I've been with you since I was sixteen! Don't you think that's pathetic? I've never had another boyfriend! I've made all sorts of sacrifices for you. I decided to settle for an education here when I've wanted all my life to go to a big, booming, promising school. Why did I do that? Why do I even put up with you? I'm living in California washing dishes!"   
"Rory, we have this fight once a week. I think I'll just..."   
"Fine!" she shouted and grabbed her coat before running out the door.   
The California summer was fading away. The air was finally becoming more brisk, and the sharp wind was comforting in her usual depressed state. She made this trip at least five teams a week, and she could've walked to her spot with nothing to guide her but her nose if she had to.  
The spot was far away from her home. If she wandered across the street, followed a path into the woods behind the rows of houses and walked for ten minutes she got there.   
The leaves were changing color. She could never decide whether she liked it best when it was in full springtime, or when the leaves above her were this palette of fall colors.   
Sitting down on the log and leaning against a tree, she began to cry. If you wanted misery, her spot was perfect. The crisp air could nip at your tears and freeze them on your cheeks. It would make crying ten times more terrible.   
Rory was one of those people who got a little comfort out of crying. Crying was an art to be done in it's full glory only when she was alone, and it was the friend that said, "yes, your life is terrible and I do feel so very sorry for you."   
Before California, she had been able to cry a lot. It hadn't been her only friend. But she had gone with Dean, accepted when he proposed to her when she was only twenty, and gone to live with him... live with him in this big place, lonely for all it's people. She missed Stars Hollow every day. She blamed Dean for everything, and she wasn't afraid to tell him that. But she was afraid to leave him.   
Rory wiped away tears and thought of the girl she'd thought she was going to become. Chasing stories through crowded streets, through deserts, through gunfire. Fearless and famous.  
How different from that was she now? So different she was convinced now that she was far from fearless. She could never be brave. She was even below timid. There was nothing for her 'out there'. And that's why she couldn't leave Dean.  
Why couldn't she go home?   
Being away from Stars Hollow, from her mother and from Luke and Lane and even Taylor and Kirk, she missed Miss Patty and Babette. She missed the porcelain unicorns.   
She had left home so confident. She had told everyone that she was going to come back to the little people one day and still remember them. She would give them all credit in her speeches (broadcasted on every channel in every language). Of course she'd been joking. But when she'd received those, "you go do that, Rory" looks, it had made her want to do it so badly. She wasn't a little girl getting mixed up in "the world" and falling for the "bad boy".   
So she couldn't go home with less than what she left with. That and about seven hundred dishes to her name.  
  
  
She sat there for a while, just thinking about her life. Or moping. The two were practically inseparable in her mind. She closed her eyes and breathed out deeply, hoping to see her breath fall out in clouds of steam. But it wasn't cold enough for that yet.   
She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a book. Howl. She opened it up and began to read. Reading. The only thing that hadn't changed.  
  
*~*~*~*~  
  
Chapter Three: What Makes The Muskrat Guard His Musk?   
  
  
"You know what you need, Jess?"  
One.  
"You need to make some friends. Get out there. You know, out in the world. You and I could go out together. I could hook you up with one of my friends and maybe you could bring some boy along..."  
"June, I don't think that I need a date with a sixty-year-old right now. In fact, I'm going to totally gush my heart out my little poor and misunderstood heart out right now and tell you what I need."  
His roommate sat down in a chair across from him, "yes, Jessie?"  
"I need a fingernail clipper."  
The creases of 'worry' on June's face didn't vanish, "well, I've got one. Sweetie?"  
Two. Just counting how many until you hit twenty.  
His hand dropped to the coffee table where he grabbed a book and opened it up. Didn't really matter what page. He'd read it about forty times.  
"Or, you know, you should get an e-mail address. I met some of the greatest guys online."  
"Gee, I wonder why? How old do you tell them you are?" he said aloud, not bothering to look up. June's mock concern in him was completely related to the fact that he was the perfect age to be a dating candidate for one of her friends. Personally, June's way of "chasing after" wasn't as flattering as she thought it to be. After all, who in this world has an Oedipus complex?  
June looked at him and stared hard until his eyes flicked up. She then shook her head slowly and deliberately and sniffed (loudly) before walking out the door.  
Oh dear. He was ridden with guilt.  
  
~Rory,  
Right now I'm so very torn. Would it be unfaithful to you to date a sixty -year old platinum blonde right now? June's given me an offer that's so hard to refuse. A romantic candlelight dinner at the old folks home.... but you know how very devoted I am to you....~  
  
Cynical. That's how Jess felt right now. Cynical.  
  
~ How is dear Bag Boy? Or how was he before you jumped in your brand new car and drove off into the wild blue yonder. Forgot all about everyone... me, him, though, for your sake, it might be better that his image is forever erased from your memory.   
Sometimes I actually work out "what-if" scenario's in my head and imagine what might have happened if I dumped Shane while I had the chance. I've forgotten what happened to her. See, Rory, that's how unimportant she was to me. Yet that's exactly why she was so *very* important. It was the little things that kept up us apart. And the little things added up to the big thing. What keeps the Rory and the Jess apart? So said the cowardly lion "what makes the muskrat guard his musk?". That was courage.  
What keeps the Rory and the Jess apart?   
Pride. And Jess' nonsensical babble through the pen.  
It would be such a cliché, reused and time-honored theme that separated us two bookworms. Maybe we were too much alike, contrary to public opinion. Of course, the one similarity they saw between us was reading. That was the one huge difference I saw. Some of the author's you read made me sick, and still those small town people saw us as the same under the literati category.  
We were such a regular little couple. Torn apart by hate between our families... or Lorelai. When she's angry, she can fill up the space of all Juliet's little Capulet clan's rage. From such different cultures... yes, Rory, they'll write a novel about our timeless love. Except it'll be a tragedy because I end up getting shot by my insane roommate and you end up a cold, hard, rich, businesswoman. And then Disney will buy it and change the ending.  
June is knocking on my door. She's saying something about spare keys. Right. Did I tell you about that? I'll let you know, in case I haven't already tooted my own grimy horn enough, that it takes a lot of skill to find out where *every single* tenant keeps their spare key. This isn't Stars Hollow where all the spare keys are kept in the gnome's pipe. My glorious collection of metal unlockers is resting on my desk next to the Rory Box.   
I know what you're thinking. Maybe you had yourself convinced that my "outrageous" crimes in Sleepytown were just to keep me amused. And they were. And you're thinking "in such a great place like New York City, how can he be bored," trust me, it's not really all that.~  
  
"JESS MARIANO!!!!" loud loud loud. He spun around in his swivel chair. Even the swivel chair reminded him of Rory. He could just imagine her soft hair spinning and whipping the air as she gave herself up to that childish urge to spin.  
"Yes Mother?" he called in an overly sweet voice.  
"UNLOCK THIS DOOR."  
"Well, I would, but I've lost my key. In fact I went all around the building yesterday looking for it. I've found a few and I'm trying all of them, but so far, none have worked."  
"JESS M-"  
He got up and unlocked the door then sat down to watch the one-woman scene. June walked in, her hair hanging limp around her powdered face. She strode to his shoe box and had a bit of trouble with it. Once it was cradled in her arms she shot him a look and stomped out the door.  
"And I thought people were supposed to grow out of the temper tantrum stage at fifty. Guess I was wrong," he actually didn't mean for her to hear that one. But her ear-shattering shriek sounded from the next room, so he guessed she did.  
  
~ When they finally give me lifetime in prison for disrespecting my elder's, Rory, I want you to come down and give me a big lecture. You're so cute when you lose your temper. And once you're done screaming I'll kiss your tightlipped mouth. You'll just stare with your mouth part open. I'll blink my eyes and lean back against my cell wall. You'll slap my bail money (which you'll have plenty of by then) on the desk and storm out.   
But it would be worth seeing you again. Maybe that's why I'm verging on being a criminal. My picture in the paper... you might still care a little bit, so you'd come.  
You don't know how much it would mean to me to~  
  
Jess stared in horror at what he'd written. As if Rory was reading over his shoulder, he crossed it out as fast as he could.   
What the hell was he thinking. He couldn't even say he missed her.   
But these were never going to be sent....  
He rolled his eyes as the fated argument began again.  
He was surprised who won.   
Once again he glanced around the room and then covered the paper with his hand as he rewrote the line and finished the sentence.   
  
June was painting her nails when Jess came out of his room holding a stack of dollar bills. Dropping them on the coffee table he didn't even look as he kept walking towards the door. She noticed a bag slung across his shoulder.  
"Jess?" she called, "where are you going?"  
"That's next month's rent," he still didn't look back, "I'm going to Rory."  
The door swung shut behind me. June sighed and turned back to her nails. Yet another little boy she'd scared away. But this one's excuse was the worst.  
She dipped the brush into the tiny glass bottle, "who the hell does he expect me to believe Rory is?"  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Four: Notes On A Coffee Cup  
  
Rory was sitting the vastly underpopulated room filled with enticing smells and specials boards. It was strange how much you could hate a town and still have so many spots in it that were dear to you, that you loved to escape to.   
"Rory, hi. The usual?"   
"Hey Diana. Yes, please," Starbucks. Of course. Coffee would always have a place in her heart. She took a piece of paper out of her bag and began to write on it.   
The Starbucks of her town was a restaurant style coffee house with a one page menu that mostly consisted of the different and bizarre flavored coffee's they served. The waitress returned with a steaming mochachino. She glanced down at the yellow pad, "what are you writing Ror?"  
The young woman hurriedly stashed her work and gave Diana an embarrassed smile, "nothing."   
Only watering manners prevented the high school girl from poking her nose further into things, "if you say so, ma'am," the title was overly stressed and the girl even gave her customer a mock curtsy to accent her opinion on the secrecy.   
Secrecy and hostility were the main players in making this town such an unfriendly place. Almost everyone, even those who had never left Salsville were convinced that they were secret agents and were absolutely forbid to consort with any of the little folk of the town. Since a decent portion of the place's population were also sure that they were not allowed to reveal their identities they did not exactly make friends with other's of "their kind".   
The place was so peculiar and tiny that Rory, upon first arriving, had actually thought she might like it in it's similarity to Stars Hollow. But the inhabitants were far from welcoming.  
She thought maybe she needed to live here for a while. Let them get used to her. But she was from a place they'd never heard of. And therefore she was unworthy of anything. She wasn't rich, and she was boring.  
Lifting up her styrofoam coffee cup she took a sip and almost spit it out. You couldn't blame the town for it's coffee.  
Still, she couldn't help but think of how much Luke's coffee had said about Stars Hollow. And what did this stuff say about Salsville?   
Cheap cup. Cheap coffee. Cheap place.   
She would never get used to any of them.  
  
"Rory!" Dean put on a fake smile, "It's so nice to see you back! Where were you all day?"   
"I went to get some coffee," his face fell.  
"I made you some," Rory kept herself from grimacing. Dean tried. Trying was the only good trait he had... or tried to have.   
"Always room for more!" she said brightly and followed him into the kitchen.   
He presented her with a mug of cold brown liquid. This wasn't even an apology. Dean always liked to pretend that their fights just went away. His logic was 'Rory comes home, that means she's forgiven me.' She and Dean never even had a moment where they stared at each other and gave a nod to apologize... and accept the other's apology.  
The coffee was worse than what she'd had earlier. Dean had already begun to pour himself some. She smiled when she saw his face. Dean did not have a very high coffee tolerance. She could only imagine what this tasted like to him.  
She got up and dumped hers in the sink. Then she turned away and left the house before she could see the look in his face.  
Dean really didn't have any personality beyond pretending to still love her and taking offense at everything she did. Ridding herself of his poor excuse for coffee would only be considered - by him- an action of pure hate on her part.  
  
  
~Rory entered Luke's. She knew by now where the key was hidden. The diner was empty and dark. She sat down at a table and waited. Lorelai didn't know she was here. She didn't need to tell anyone she was here. This was her business alone.  
And then he came downstairs. A box labeled "books" was cradled in his arms. He saw her and set it down.  
"Hi Jess."   
He gave her a nod and started upstairs.  
"Wait!" she called, jumping up and running to him, "aren't you going to say something?"   
"Wasn't planning on it."  
"I came to see you."   
"Rory, you could try making your own coffee sometime."  
"Jess! I don't want coffee, I want to talk to you!"  
He stared at her for a few seconds. Then he went behind the counter and began to prepare coffee.  
"So, why do you have your books down here?"   
"These are only a few. I was going to drop them off at your house," she smiled. So she had been forgiven. Waiting until he was in front of her, she leaned forward to kiss him. He walked away.  
"Jess? You did break up with Shane, didn't you?" she was terrified for a second and her sudden action now looked rash, harsh instead of brave. The cold doubt returned and flooded her head. What ifs and maybe poked cruelly at her: had Babette too greatly stressed some episode of Jess and Shane drama. What if they hadn't broken up? What if it was just a little fight and she was waiting outside for him right now?  
"Yea. Did you break up with Dean?"   
She smiled, her confidence returning, "I told him it was to hard. He said fine, but once I'd realized that I was wrong, he'd be waiting."   
"Hmm. So now you need someone new and I'm closest?"  
She couldn't believe this. Wasn't this what they both wanted? "Jess, you know perfectly well that I really, really..." he interrupted her before she could go on.  
"Don't you want to know why I broke up with Shane?"  
Rory smiled again and leaned closer to him, "because you couldn't stand to be without me?" she teased.  
"No. I'm going back home."  
He was joking, of course. She rolled her eyes, "again?"  
He stared at her once more and the her smile fled, "aren't you home here?" she was whispering. Confused. What she had done with Dean - it had seemed right at the time. She had wanted to set herself apart from the expected, and take another step towards Christine Amaphour. But what if they were right - the inhabitants of her smiling town. What if he had been right the night they had driven her steady car to it's battered doom? What if...  
"Not kidding," he said, the words washing her in unmistakable dread, "the books are a gift to you. You were the only decent thing in this place."  
Rory tried again to kiss him. And succeeded this time, "that's my going away present to you, Mr. Mariano," she said quietly, hoping that she could win him again with a kiss - make him stay, just for her. Was she being selfish? Was she blackening his future by trying to shackle him to the limits of Stars Hollow?   
Selfish or not, he kissed her back.   
He turned around and poured out the coffee, "it'll do."   
What was this? Wasn't there supposed to be love in the air by now? Where was the music, the zooming out on the happy couple as they at last joined together in the ending kiss? A perfect kiss free of boyfriend worries, free of everything. They were supposed to be in love by now, "Jess, you can't..."  
"Luke has all the rest of my stuff at the bus station. Bye Rory." He was at the door. She wasn't going to let him get away again.  
"Are you leaving because of me? Are you still mad at me? Jess, just give me a chance I'll..."  
"Rory, you were the reason I came back. And I hate to see your eyes look tortured like that. So just... blink. Don't make me look at you. I came back for you, but I don't think that I was to much of a thing to wait for," she pushed her eyes as far open as the could go, trying to be defiant while she still felt so inexplicably powerless that it was laughable, "bye Rory," he said at last.  
He walked out the door, leaving her at the counter. She stared at where he had been standing just moments ago. Lifeless, she took a sip of coffee. It should've been delicious. It should've comforted her. Instead it tasted bitter on her tongue. She had the strongest urge to spit it at him... if only he was there to be spit on.   
Her eyes fell on the box of books. Unsure of what to do, she went over to them and kneeled down, taking out some of the worn paperbacks. Putting her head down on the box, she closed her eyes and cried.   
Luke came into the diner later that night after seeing Jess off. His baseball cap was folded and smashed between his hands, and his eyes were on the concrete, wondering if he'd done something wrong. He found Rory asleep. When she woke up early the next morning, she was in her bed.   
She spent the rest of her sleeping hours crying. Lorelai let her skip school the next day without needing to ask why. News traveled fast in Stars Hollow. And best friends don't often have to use words.~  
  
  
"Rory!" the twenty-two year old look up to see her only Salsville friend rushing towards her.   
"Hannah," there was a styrofoam coffee cup in her left hand and a pen in her right hand. Blue ink was scribbled and smudged all over the cup.  
"Inspiration catch you off guard again?" her friend asked with a head jerk to the cup when she caught up to Rory.   
"I wasn't totally unprepared this time. Trusty ole' Pete the Pen was with me."  
"Well, you can stop trying to cover your writing with your little fingers. I've long since stopped trying to read it."  
Rory cautiously removed her hand and Hannah eyes immediately flew to the unprotected writing. Hannah looked at Rory and smiled, "it's instinct," Rory's frown caused her friend a laugh, "don't worry. It's so smudged it's illegible anyway."  
The two walked in silence. Hannah turned to Rory and suddenly asked, "did you and Dean have a fight today?"  
"I would normally compliment you on skills of observation. But we've been fighting so much lately..." Rory looked down at the pavement. Hannah regretted bringing it up.  
"Rory?" she asked again, trying to change subjects. She hated seeing Rory sad, and she hated this stupid place and the idiots in it for making Rory so unhappy.  
"Yes?"   
"What do you write on those coffee cups?"  
"Memories."  
"You never talk about your life before you came here. Why do you write about it?"  
"Because I miss it so much. And if I write it down, it's easier to believe that it's not mine," Hannah raised an eyebrow, "it's like reading a novel," Rory explained without to much in her voice suggesting that there was any heart in it, "you know that it's all not real and that's makes it easier to stop longing for it. It's easier to see once you put it in print that it was too perfect to last."  
Hannah put her arm around her the small woman, "Rory, what made you desert Stars Hollow?"  
Rory sighed, "me."  
The other girl gave her a half-hug and kissed the top of her head, "come on, no one will know. You'll feel better if you have a scapegoat. Whose fault was it really?"  
"Rory Leigh Gilmore."  
"Honey, that's you."  
Rory looked up at her for a second then turned her eyes to the woods, "not anymore."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Five: It's Better Then Drinking Alone  
  
  
"Hey, mister. Can I get you something?"  
"A ride to Connecticut?"  
"Can't help you there."  
Jess shrugged and waved his hand to one of the beers.  
"Polite, aren't you?" the bartender asked, grabbing it off the shelf for him.  
"So, Connecticut, what are you doing here?"   
These assumed regulars had the idea of a Cheers bar fixed in their heads. Free drinks, open hearts, a tight we-have-no-lives-drinking club... lovely little picture. Not his kind of thing. He shrugged again.   
"Just saying, I don't see any reason for you to be here. In Monitcello."  
"I'm not exactly a native."  
"It's obvious."  
Shrug. He switched shoulders this time. The waitress plopped down next to him, "so, you speak with limbs only?"  
"I'm fluent in it."  
"Well, English isn't your first language, obviously," a girl on his left side injected with an air of knowledge before she burst out laughing and slapped the cold counter with her hand.  
The waitress even was striking up two-second poses. Instinctively, he looked around for a camera.  
"No, that would have to be Manhattan," said a woman wearing so much lipstick it couldn't be healthy, eyes narrowed, lips tight, a perfect face of drunk analyzation.  
"Oh, a city kid!" Regular-With-Beer-Glued-to-Hand commented.  
"I've never been to the city."  
The conversation switched from him to graffiti, pigeons, and pollution and he was left alone to drink. Until the Bar Rats remembered the stranger in their midst.   
"Why are you going to Connecticut?"  
"Chasing after the girl I love." They took his reply mildly, as if it happened all the time in their little television land.  
"Why don't you take a bus? I know you can get from the City to almost anywhere, with a few transfers...."  
"I have no money."  
"Who does?" Mr. Regular nodded to himself, "who does? Hey mister! Another two beers... on him!" the selection was random. It didn't seem to matter. Grumbling, the victim threw money on the counter and turned back to his laptop.   
His breath heavy and thick with drink, Regular leaned over to Jess and stage-whispered in his ear, "we like to pick on the business guys. Make them think they fit in and then 'em drain for cash," Business Guy scowled as the harsh voice carried across the room.   
Jess raised the bottle to his lips. A woman with a hopefully fake bird on her head had just entered and was screaming the "latest". If you took Stars Hollow and saturated it in alcohol, this would be it.  
He glanced around and noticed a girl - maybe fourteen years old, sitting in the corner reading her book as the man with her... probably her father, with his eyes fixed on the football game. She had to have a story. Bar Bookworm.  
He tilted his head to get a better look at the book but received a warning glance from her father.   
God, he missed Rory.   
But he was going to find her now, and that was all that was important.  
  
He was up to his elbows in dishwater. The owner of the motel came in and smiled at the stack of clean dishes.  
"Nice job."  
"That's what you're not paying me for."  
"I hope you'll like the room you're getting."  
"So long as there aren't enough termites to chew down and collapse the cheap bed I'm sleeping in, I'll be fine."  
"Not very confident in my motel, are you?"  
"The outside doesn't give the best impression."  
"My mother, Anna Sr., did the decorating," she said with a sigh. He nodded, as if it explained everything. It had been five years, but the small town bank of knowledge still existed in his head.  
"So, are you done yet?"  
He spun the last dish onto the pile, "yep. Can I go to bed now?"  
"Only after you finish making the french toast for tomorrow."  
"You serve your french toast cold?"   
"It'll be our little secret."   
"Remind me not to get breakfast here tomorrow."  
"Just because it's reheated? Like you've never been broke," Anna defended her motel quickly, "and let me tell you, what I don't put in on food, I put in on good, reliable, microwave ovens."  
He broke the final egg and handed her the two bowls, "mix, stir, soak bread, cook, flip, done."  
"What?"  
He was already asleep by the time she came into his room, covered in flour and asking if he could please make another batch.  
  
"Mariano! Over here!" Jess glanced around the motel and spotted his ride. The one-in-a-million person who had happened to be staying at Anna's motel and was headed for Stars Hollow.  
"Hey," he dropped his bag into the open trunk before getting in to the car. He was still tired could hardly see through the heavy early-morning mist of the Catskill mountains.  
They drove the first few miles without saying a word, Jess with his nose in a book, Sam with his eyes on the road. At last Sam sighed, as if he had been fighting the urge to say this for the last hour.  
"So, how'd you screw up?"  
"Excuse me?" Jess looked up.  
"Hardly anyone ever gets out of Stars Hollow. If you did, you wouldn't have to hitch a ride with me to come back. So you must've screwed up. Like me."  
"Well, I hadn't figured that out about you yet," but Jess had known that he and this man had something in common. Why else would Sam have agreed to take Jess with him back to Stars Hollow. When they shook hands, their eyes had spoken that a rule would not be to pry any further into backgrounds. But now Sam had given out to his pure human curiosity.  
"Guess it's kind of obvious, now that I'm taking renters?" Sam gave a soft snort at his own comment and his eyes hardened, "seriously, though, I didn't know Stars Hollow had to many screw-ups."  
"The whole town is a screw-up."  
"So you must've done something pretty bad to be counted... bad."  
Jess didn't look at him when he answered. Instead he looked out the window, "didn't you?"  
"Worst part is, I don't have anyone to blame it on."  
"Join the club."  
"Anyone but me."  
"Join the club."  
Another cloud of quietude descended on them. It took awhile for Sam to speak again.  
"When did you leave?"  
"Five years ago."  
"That would explain why I don't know you. Ten."  
"Oh."  
"Yea. Let me tell you, spending ten years hating yourself is not the most pleasant in the selection of futures. Remember this, Mariano, you choose for yourself. No one chooses for you."  
"I'll remember it, coach."  
Sam reddened, "sorry."  
"Well, if I hadn't come to my senses about Rory, I would probably have had just that fate."  
"Rory Gilmore? The nice little girl who seemed to be joined at the hip with her mother?"   
"Lorelai," he almost smiled. His memories of Lorelai were practically welcome memories. She was so much like Rory.   
But no one could ever be Rory.  
"So how are they?" Sam asked. Jess could see where this was going. He decided to play along with the small talk.  
"I don't know. Last I saw, Rory had high hopes for Harvard and Lorelai was in a constant flirting match with my uncle."   
"Luke Danes?"  
"So their relationship's famous?"  
"It's a little town."  
The silences were getting less uncomfortable.  
"Is Taylor still there?"  
"Yea."  
"That man is going to live forever. I remember when I was a kid and he caught me skipping across the street, the next town meeting was about how children's discipline needed to be stronger."  
"Well, at least I didn't keep him bored," Jess said, then stopped.  
Sam glanced at him and a slow smile crept across his face, "oh, come on. Tell me your Taylor pranks!"  
Jess sighed and suddenly longed for orange juice, "one time I drew an outline of a body outside his market and put police tape around it."  
"I'm surprised the local boys didn't worship you."  
"There's just something pretty hateable about me, I guess."  
Quiet. Hush. Lull.   
"So are you going to tell me what happened?" Sam had finally cut to the chase - again. Jess' eyes flicked over to him for a second before he responded.  
"Nope."  
"I wasn't really ready to tell you mine, either," his driver admitted.   
  
Time passed in slow hours of silence, coughs, and occasional words. The clock in Sam's car didn't seem to work, and neither man had a watch.  
"Do you want something to drink?" asked Jess sometime later, hand in his backpack.  
"I might have lived in Stars Hollow where all types and forms of alcohol were nonexistent but I still know the laws of the outside world, and they seem to imply..."  
"No, I have two pints of Tropicana Orange Juice."  
"Orange juice?"  
Jess looked over at him and shook the pint, trying to make it appear more appetizing. His companion snatched it and opened it deftly, taking a long gulp before setting it on the dashboard.  
"I see we're not foreign to opening Orange Juice containers," Jess said in the lightest form of drawl/Jess-teasing.  
"Hey, when I was a kid, my mom made me open my own milk."  
Sam seemed ready for Jess to share a similar memory. He simply took a sip of his own identical beverage.   
A silence settled over the two of them. It wasn't awkward, it wasn't anything. The two stood on common ground. That was enough in a friendship for Jess. These days, he hardly found enough people he could stand being around for five minutes.   
Sam flipped on the radio and the song came on in the middle.  
  
  
And they're sharing a drink,  
They call loneliness,  
But it's better then drinking alone.  
  
Sing us a song, you're the piano man,  
Sing us a song tonight,  
We're in the mood for a melody,  
And you've got us feeling all right.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Six: Ms. Gilmore of Salsville, California   
  
  
The squirrel was being watched.  
Had the furry rodent known, it couldn't have cared less. The bright blue eyes that were taking in every crinkle of nose never blinked, but the squirrel was far from flattered. It went on chewing.   
It's watcher mimicked the action with her own cold biscuit.   
At last the object of her attentions looked up and stared at her and sat quite still. It wasn't afraid, that much was obvious. It did, however, look rather perturbed that this big, hairless lump was trying to familiarize itself with the squirrel's own stashes of nuts. It dropped it's nut before scurrying off, perhaps hoping that the creature would be distracted by the acorn, giving the squirrel time to get back to it's storage tree without the hideous giant seeing.   
The Hairless Lump (actually very beautiful by it's own species standards) folded her legs beneath her in the most graceful form and put a few slim fingers over the acorn. She gingerly let her hand enclose around it before dropping it in the pocket of her faded blue coat.   
The rock on which she had sat crouched on for an hour, just watching the squirrel, had left it's own pebbled indentations in her blue jeans. She smoothed out the wrinkles as best she could before tightening her periwinkle scarf and gathering her hair in the respectful bun it was usually kept in these days.   
The squirrel had invaded her spot two days ago. Every day so far it had come dashing around the clearing, collect what nuts had fallen, then make it's escape after it was enough irritated by Rory's open and rude staring to leave.  
For the last two days, she had watched the squirrel come and go. That morning she had risen at four, before the sun was even out, to wander to her spot and search the canopy of dry branches to look for his home. Rory had never been a morning person, and her four o'clock extrusions had never treated her well. She could take half an hour of being enchanted by dawn's beauty before she simply collapsed against a tree and slept until her face was splashed by the first rays of sun. Gilmore's had never been early risers.  
That morning when she'd awoken again to see the squirrel peeking his head out from a branch in the tree in front of her, then diving to the ground. She had leaned forward, cupped her chin in her hands, and watched the squirrel that she found herself loving more then many a thing in her wretched... location.  
Why did the squirrel spellbind her so? She wasn't so much of physco-analyist to guess. Perhaps because it looked so simple and carefree and God damn happy. And simple. And carefree.   
Rory had always had two voices in her head. The voice of her early years who had always seen that the resident of the house down the street - the one who wore all black and walked with a twisted cane - was a witch.  
And then there was the voice that she had hoped would someday make her famous. The voice that sought a story in the cat-loving woman, wanted to make her into some newspaper character: a misunderstood old lady.  
That voice saw no potential in a squirrel, and in it's gift of the acorn. It saw nothing but one of nature's creatures using some defense mechanism it instinctively had: leave an acorn, the predator backs off.   
But the voice that knew a witch when it saw one - whether she rode on her broomstick in plain view or tried to disguise her witchiness beneath a mean old lady exterior - that voice loved the squirrel, saw it as different from every other squirrel in Salsville. It fueled the voice to whisper "thank you" to the rodents retreating form.   
Salsville had brought the childish voice out from hiding. Her journalistic voice had had little to do in the shifty town. It had gone to sleep when it discovered that Rory was letting it go for some guy that was her most recent love. Rory had realized it's absence when her husband showed her that their house of dreams was a falling down shack in a place where the most polite people were the ones who would take the longest in removing your money from your pocket. She had realized then that she had failed one voice.  
It was then that the other voice woke up and kept Rory alive.  
  
"Hello Mrs. Rytfen," Rory said cheerily from her place in the back of Goods and Gorp line.  
The woman shifted her eyes ever so slightly and then saw who owned the voice. A smile pumped with artificial flavoring spread across her tight lips, "Mrs. Forrester," she purred, reaching out a claw like hand to Rory, "nice to see someone's in back of me. Can't have a girl like me in the back of the line."   
Rory had lived here for two years. She was still the new girl.  
"Ms. Gilmore," she corrected. It was habit by now, insisting on a more contemporary title in this old fashioned town. She didn't understand why she still bothered. Want of a Ms. was just another thing to add to the list of reasons to dislike the young and "rebellious" Lorelai Forrester.  
"But isn't this your fourth time in the back of the line this week?" to be in the back of the line and Goods and Gorp was a sign of laziness. In Salsville, you were quick and alert whilst you shopped. The less time it took, the more time you had to sit around at home and practice your "shifty eyes". When you went to the Salsville Mall (a block of buildings calling themselves stores for clothes) your service was curt and rude. They might as well have been screaming at you, "faster, faster, the faster you are the quicker I can leave."   
"How is your husband, Mrs. Rytfen?" Rory asked in her most polite voice.  
"He is very well, Mrs. Forrester. And yours?" the dialogue was sickening and tedious: straight out of a slightly twisted Jane Austen - oh, and that was a double negative. Right about now the heroine would have rebelled and left the lazy town for intrigue, romance and excitement.  
"He has never been in a higher state of content with his life," Rory answered, trying to add some interest to the conversation. Sometimes she could actually find herself in competitions with the local folk of who could use the most 'big words' in a sentence. They hated it when she outdid them. However, Mrs. Rytfen was a self appointed queen of Salsville. She considered most below her, and was unshaken by any amount of excessive vocabulary.  
"I am happy to here that. There has been some silly rumor about divorce being in the wind for you two. But a divorce of such a young and carefree and romantic couple - under the Salsville sky, no less - would be such a shame."  
The words were back. If only they applied. You are sly, Mrs. Rytfen. What you mean, of course, is that I can't hold onto the pitiful excuse I have for a husband. And that I'm an idiot teenager who's going to end up living in a shack with a moron for the rest of her life.  
You see, I would be mad, but you're right.  
"Mrs. Rytfen, it's your turn," Rory's hand made a sweeping gesture to the counter. She resisted a very strong urge to stick her tongue and flap her hands at the witch when she was out of it's line of vision.   
The two years had brought great improvement on Rory's ability to withstand temptation.  
Only the tip of her tongue made it past her teeth.  
  
  
It was the afternoon when she came home, arms full of groceries, and without a husband to help her carry the load to the kitchen. She kicked the door closed her foot and walked to the back of the house.   
"Rory..." Her belated knight in shining armor strode into the room and gave his wife a stern look, "I need to talk with you."   
At that moment, Rory hated herself. She hated herself for praying that this talk would end in a divorce. She hated herself for praying that she would have an excuse to run, crying, to Stars Hollow and into her mother's open arms. Back into the life she had loved, the life that had been made so wonderful by every single resident of the town that was her life.  
Dean had been a part of it, but he had stopped contributing to the glory of Stars Hollow when...  
Dean's voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked down at her shoes, afraid that her face would show her eagerness.  
"Rory, I know that a 'where is this relationship' going talk is supposed to be a thing of high-school-sweetheart days."  
Oh sure. Rub it in that I'm married to my first boyfriend. All thoughts of trying to hide her joy at the possible outcomes of such a "talk" fled and she stared at him, trying to appear extremely bitter and unlovable.  
"But I think that we need it. You see, Rory, I've been in love with you for a long time."  
"Dean, I think I know where this is going," she said quickly and (she hoped) cruelly.   
"Oh, thank God. We all know I'm no good with words."  
"No, Dean, you're terrible with them. Terrible at everything," she was right now trying to figure out what would be the best way to angrily storm up to their room, grab the suitcase that sat in her closet and storm out. Rory had never unpacked. Dean had always told her this was temporary.   
"Everything but loving you," he said, his face wearing a little smile that could be called nothing but goofy.  
"Not anymore."  
"Well, I guess our freshly married relationship is finally over."  
"It did draw out for a little, huh?" ugh. She even said that last part with a smile. Why wasn't he giving her what she needed for a fight?  
"Well Dean, I don't think I can stand another second in this house. I think I'm going to go pack. Right now! The sight of this shack is... sickening...." his expressionless face hadn't given her the energy she needed to continue her passionate rage.  
"Well, aren't we a little drama queen?"  
"YES! Now I'm packing!"  
"Okay! Okay! Just, well, don't count on moving out of here for a while."  
His words froze her. Her foot was left hovering over the bottom step. Her head turned back to him and mission: stomping was halted.  
"Do... do you make a habit of keeping your ex-wives hostage?"  
Now both their faces showed obvious confusion, "Ror? Ex-wives? What are you talking about?"  
"Well, I thought we were getting a divorce...." she was squeaking like a mouse. He came over to her and had pulled her into a hug and a sloppy kiss.  
"Rory, no wonder you were so mad! I just meant that we should, you know, start making this into more of a marriage. Get a bigger house, start making our... martial status more obvious to the rest of Salsville. I was talking to Mr. Plezer" the owner of the market where Dean was bag boy, "and he's forgotten all about you. I was lucky enough to get you. I want everyone to know how much we love each other."  
Right.  
"Oh... well... phew! That was close, huh?" she was crying, she realized.   
"Rory, don't cry. Don't cry."  
"I... I..."  
"You don't have to say anything. It's all right."  
  
  
"Hi Rory! The usual?"  
"Hey Diana. Yes, please."  
The coffee arrived. The coffee disappeared. Automatic reactions. She pulled a pen from her purse and began to scribble on her coffee cup.  
"What are you writing, Rory?" Diana asked. Why is it, Rory wondered, that everyone always has time to annoy me?  
"You know what's great about not working?" was Rory's answer.   
Diana sighed, "no, what?"  
"You have so much time to do nothing. Christopher Robin told Pooh that his favorite thing to do was do nothing."  
"Rory, I'm sensing a ramble."  
"Have you ever watched a squirrel? You should. They're so great, squirrels... they're so innocent and bold, so naïve, so interested in doing what they do... they have such happy lives."  
"Yes, Rory. I suppose you want to be a squirrel?"  
"I wouldn't mind it," Diana got up and walked away. Lorelai Gilmore Forrester was strange. Diana liked her, but she wasn't sure what she thought of her sanity.   
"Well, Rory, if you need anything more..."  
"Another coffee cup. I'm out of room on this one."  
"Sure," poor Rory. Diana knew how lost Rory was. One time she had even done a paper on her for school - changing her name to Alice Fillmont, of course.   
Poor Rory. She looked like she had been one of those who could've been big.   
Diana just hoped she didn't end up like her. She was pretty sure there wasn't any hope for Rory.  
  
~  
"Rory Gilmore, today is a monumental day. Today is a day that you and I will cherish forever. Today is a day that..."  
"Mom!" six-year-old Rory whined.  
"all right, all right," Lorelai pouted at the interruption in her speech but skipped to the end anyway, "today I have invited all our friends to witness this event. Kirk has even agreed to videotape it for us. Today we have with us all who are dear and some who aren't," those who were attending the Big Tasting glanced at one another. Rory clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle at her mom's speech - so reminiscent to Bilbo Baggins', "but it doesn't matter because no one can spoil this day for us! No one! So..." Lorelai glared at Luke. He went behind the counter, took the steaming pot, frowned and gave Lorelai his "you don't know what you're doing" face. Luke had a lot of faces for Lorelai.  
The diner owner added in a voice that was as desperate as Luke's voice could get his final warning, "Lorelai, you'll regret this. You'll regret this 'til the day you die. If you want to end up lying in a hospital bed attached to New York City's water supply and hooked into the electrical system, fine. But don't do it to your daughter."  
"Rory, bambi face, show him the bambi face," Rory looked up and gave Luke the bambi face. Lorelai added her own eyes. Luke frowned again.  
"POUR!" Lorelai commanded. He took a mug off the shelf and poured the coffee into. Another stern glance from Lorelai. He took Rory's favorite mug and poured it in there instead.  
Rory went up the counter and stood on her toes, her tiny face peering up from below the bar stool. She held up her hands and Luke started to pass her the coffee like he would Kirk when he was being a pest about beverages. Lorelai screeched and dashed behind the counter before snatching the coffee back and then cradling it in her two hands. Then she straightened and cleared her throat.  
"Rory, by the power invested in me by me, I now pronounce you able to take your very first sip of coffee," and with these words, Lorelai passed the mug down to Rory. Rory held it in between her hands and closed her eyes. She raised her mug to her lips and tilted back her head before letting the hot liquid heaven slide down her throat and warm her stomach.  
Almost the whole town of Stars Hollow stood staring at her. Each was waiting for the moment when Rory proved whether or not they'd win their bet: she'd love it, she'd hate it. Was she, in fact, a creature of caffeine?  
Rory placed the mug back on the counter and held up her arms to her mother. Lorelai picked her up and kissed her forehead.  
"Well?" she asked.  
"It's yummy," Rory said, "it's very very yummy."  
The diner erupted in chaos. Everyone was jumping up and down, Luke was pouting, and Lorelai and Rory were drinking coffee together for the first time.   
"Rory, I want to let you know that all coffee is not as good as Luke's coffee. Luke's coffee is the ruling coffee of all coffee's. But there will come a time when you need to buy other coffees. And you will have to learn to live with them. However, if you have lived on non-Luke's coffee for over a week, murder is acceptable to get to it. And when we go home I'll teach you how to make your own - even though that will never be necessary with Luke so close by."  
"Unless," Luke added, "it's the middle of the night and I'm asleep and then you will have to make your own."  
"Like I said," Lorelai went on as if she hadn't heard the diner owner's grumble, "it will never be necessary. Because Luke will always be there for us."  
  
~   
  
"Luke!" Rory dashed into the diner, panting, "I need coffee!"   
"No," the man didn't even look up from the card he was scribbling on.  
"But I need it!" she said again.  
"Well I haven't made any and I don't have time. Did you not see the closed sign?"  
"But your door wasn't locked," the ten-year-old smiled, as if it made no sense. Luke looked up and sighed.  
Now that her request had been granted, she smiled and hopped onto a bar stool.  
"Who are you writing to, Luke?" she asked.   
"Santa Claus."  
"Did you ask him to bring me presents? Because I'd really like..."   
"I'm writing to my nephew."  
Rory leaned forward, "you have a nephew?"  
"Yea. It's his birthday sometime next week."  
"Next week is my coffee anniversary."   
"How could I forget?"  
"I'm getting free coffee, right?"  
"You always get free coffee."  
"But now I'll get more free coffee."  
"You know the limit."  
"But it's my coffee anniversary," she said in the same dazed voice as before. He gave her a glare.  
"What's your nephew's name?" Luke checked the card.  
"Jess."  
"How old is he?"  
"Your age."   
"I wish I had a cousin."  
"Here's your coffee," he began to usher her out the door, "and practice reading the word CLOSED once you get home. There's a difference between that and OPEN."  
"You practice reading the word HARDWARE!" she called as she skipped out the door, "there's a difference between that and DINER!"  
He smiled after her, and she stopped outside the diner to smile back. Her smile lit up her face.  
  
~  
  
Dean wasn't home once Rory got back another one of her eventless days. She collapsed on their couch and began to read. When he got back her kissed her and gave her a smile. He was so happy. So happy that they were "moving on."   
But they weren't. They could walk forward as far as they liked, but their hearts were back in their sixteenth year.   
She smiled back at him. The shape her lips formed had all the traits of a smile, but her eyes were dull as she looked at her husband.  
He pretended not to notice, and tried to remember when Rory had started smiling like that.   
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Seven: Hello, James Dean  
  
Neither one of the two men that sat in the car were sure if they could get out.  
"Well, you found a parking place."   
"Yea," Sam said hollowly, staring at Stars Hollow's main street.  
"I think we need to get out of the car."  
"I'm going to get of the car now," Sam said, not to Jess, but to himself.  
"Do you need me to hold your hand?" Jess in the most mocking tone he had. Sam glared and unbuckled his seat belt.  
Jess threw open the door and got out.  
"Looks the same," he remarked, not admitting how glad he was of it.   
"Looks better then when I left it," suddenly Sam was smiling and he threw back his head and screamed, "WE'RE BACK!". Jess smiled, despite himself  
Of course at this the whole town poked their heads out of their fairy-tale homes and stared. Slowly they came out onto the street and just looked at the returnees, their mouths hanging open.   
Sam walked up to one of the houses that hadn't revealed any gaping idiots and knocked.   
"MOM!" he called.   
"Sam?" came a voice. The door slowly opened and the woman hugged Sam as hard as she could, "my Sammy!"  
The mouths of the townsfolk closed halfway. They smiled at the crying mother and son who stood in the doorway.   
They frowned at Jess.  
He grabbed his suitcase out of the trunk and walked up the street.  
"Just the kind of welcome I'd hoped for."  
  
Jess had walked to this house more times then he could count. He had paced back and forth, debating whether or not he should knock, throw a rock at her window...  
He wasn't 'fretting' as he knocked this time. He just slumped over and waited.  
The door opened. For the first time in his life he caught his breath. She looked the same, and he could even see Rory in her.  
"Hello, James Dean," she said.  
"Hello Ms. Gilmore."  
"Well, come in."  
  
He stood in her living room as he had six years before, looking at the pictures on her mantelpiece. Rory as a baby, Rory when she was six, holding a coffee mug, Rory, Rory, Rory. Lorelai came over and looked at the pictures.   
"So, let me guess, you missed her?"  
He shrugged and followed her into the kitchen where she sat down, a mug of coffee in her right hand.   
"I missed you, too, Lorelai," he said. She opened her mouth to continue the banter but he interrupted her, "I just need to find out about her. I need to find her."  
"Hmm," Lorelai took a sip, "this is very good for something I've cooked."  
He didn't point out that you didn't cook coffee. She was looking at him from the corner of her eye, measuring, seeing if he was worthy of her daughter. He could tell all this and sat up straighter, looking back at her.  
"Well, James, I guess you'll find out from someone else if you don't find out from me."  
"Most likely."  
"Rory doesn't live here anymore."  
"I guessed."   
She stopped. He noticed that he had leaned forward at the sound of *her* name. Embarrassed, he withdrew into his chair.  
"She's in Salsville, California."  
"You sure?"  
"My telephone bill tells me so."   
"How is she?" he asked. Mild. That's all he wanted. A mild conversation that led to answers.   
To his surprise, Lorelai started crying.  
He sat still for a long time as she cried, just watching her brown head quiver on the table and listening to her sniff and sneeze. He didn't look at the clock to time how long she trembled there. He just watched her, somewhere between confused and sad and angry and relieved and frustrated and lost.  
At last she lifted her head and he passed her a tissue. She took it and wiped her eyes. She did not look red and swollen. Crying became her.  
"Thanks, Jess," she said softly. Then she looked up and stated firmly, "I need a hug."  
He stood up and went to where she sat, then gave her a most awkward embrace. She clung tightly to him and kept crying. He held onto her and wondered why, why she as putting on such a display of emotion for a boy she had hated for a year and not seen in five.   
When her last tear had been shed, she let go of him and smiled.  
"I needed that."  
He just looked at her. He was confused, to say the least.  
"I needed to cry. Rory... Rory left this life," she waved her hand to the kitchen, "about two years ago. Hers is not a happy tale."  
"What happened?" he asked.  
"She went to Harvard. And then to Yale. And then she told me one day that Dean - they were still together - Dean had asked her to go live with him in California. She was so sure that life was going to work out right for her. So she left and went with him."  
Oh.  
"I'm sorry, Jess. She and I don't talk much anymore. Whenever I call, I get her answering machine. Whenever I write, the reply could've been to Taylor as much as it was for me."  
He wasn't sure what to do. He sat there for a few seconds and then gave Lorelai a weak smile as a tear rolled down his cheek. She came over and gave him a much firmer hug.   
"It's nice to know someone's as miserable as I am. She's gone. But I bet..."  
she was having a hard time talking, "I bet they broke up. She was ten times to good for him."  
"Yea," was all he could say. He refused to let his voice be choked up in front of Lorelai.   
"Isn't it nice to have someone to cry with?"  
He nodded this time, feeling seven years old. A salty drop of water from Lorelai landed on his head.  
"I need a cigarette."  
"Too bad."  
"I quit."  
"You can sleep in Rory's old room tonight." The dialogue was pointless and meaningful at the same time.  
"Thanks," he said, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. He still couldn't believe the 'moment' he had just had. Finding out Rory was gone. Crying with Lorelai.   
"Jess," she called. He looked back at her, "some of Rory's books are still there."  
"Thanks," he said again.  
She knew that she didn't have to tell him where Rory's bedroom was. Once he was in his room, he smelled the air and he smelled her.   
He glanced at the bookshelves. Each had been labeled since he'd left: by author, genre...  
And then he saw a label underneath a shelf in the center of a bookcase.  
He went over to it and read it, sure for the first time he was in love with Rory, and so completely willing to put it on paper.   
"Jess Books," he whispered  
Every shelf had a few books on it. He knew that they were Rory's least favorite of her collection. Of course she'd taken all her favorites with her and left behind just a few of each genre  
All but the shelf for "Jess Books."  
It was empty.  
She'd taken all those with her.  
  
  
Lorelai poured herself another cup of coffee. She was thinking how she would tell Jess in the morning. She hated that boy, but at least they had something in common now.   
She stared into the mirror and began to practice: "Good morning Jess. There is something I forgot to mention last night while we were crying our miserable worm eaten hearts out. Rory's married to Dean. Yea. Sorry about that. I know you love her and all but, hey, I love her, too. We both lost her to the freakishly tall Bag Boy. Want to have another little crying session? Oh, I see you've already started. Want me to buy you a pack of cigarettes?"  
She glanced at the microwave. It was three o'clock in the morning. She would be sleeping all day tomorrow - no. She had to tell Jess tomorrow.   
"Hey Lorelai."  
Speak of the devil.  
"Can I have Rory's address?"  
She gestured to the fridge.   
He grabbed it and gave Lorelai a rare smile before practically running out the door. She ran after him and reached the door.  
"Where are you going?" she screamed.  
He didn't look back as he walked down the street, "Rory!"   
Her jaw dropped. He kept walking.  
"You can't walk to California!" she called.  
"Where she leads I will follow!" he answered, almost pleased at his Hollywood words.  
And then she smiled. Her loathing of the kid who'd almost killed her daughter was gone.  
"Hey Jess!"  
"What?"  
"You can use my car! Keys in the ignition."  
He turned around and stared. She smiled. He walked to the jeep and turned it on.  
He started rolling forward.  
"Thanks!"  
Was the last thing she heard before he sped off into the night.  
  
  
Finding a parking space hadn't been hard. There were only a few cars and he, honestly, would have parked on top of one. He needed to see her right now.  
"27, 28, 29, 30, 31..."  
it was hard to believe that something so ugly could house Rory. His eyes flickered over the house and he made a lucky guess as to where her room was. He saw, though, that the wall leading to her window was impossible for climbing.  
He grabbed another side of the house and began to climb up. The gaps in the house made for easy footholds.   
His head was spinning with what-ifs. But his feet kept moving. They were not going to stop until they got to Rory.   
And then he reached the window about ten feet from where he guessed she was. He took a pebble from his pocket and tossed it to her window. He wanted her to be awake to greet him. He needed to hear her voice.   
Another pebble.   
Another.  
"Hey, you!" he yelled  
Another.  
He estimated about far he'd have to jump. He let go of the wall and sprung over to the window and tossed the final pebble.  
Plunk.  
  
He didn't notice as a car pulled out from the driveway and sped off carrying the patriarch of the household.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~ 


	16. The Complete Writing To Rory pt 2

Chapter Eight: Tracks of My Tears  
  
~  
Lorelai looked up at Luke and then down at her empty coffee cup.   
"Guess what I want more than anything in the world right now."   
Rory scrambled onto her mother's lap and grinned at Luke, "Mommy wants coffee."   
"You are a smart little girl," Lorelai said, kissing the top of her head.  
"Rory, you're getting bigger every day," Luke remarked as he carelessly poured another cup of coffee for Lorelai, "it's probably because you don't have coffee stunting your growth and poisoning your very soul."   
"Ah. The doctor was wondering what was doing that to me," Lorelai said.   
"Shut up Ms. Gilmore."   
"Shut up Duke."   
Rory settled back into her mother's soft sweater. It was so interesting watching her Mommy and Mr. Luke argue. They acted like they hated each other... but she was sure that they didn't. After all, Luke had never once charged them... as far as she could remember. And she couldn't imagine him ever doing so. That would have been the end of her world.  
  
~  
  
The memory she started off with was just something she'd remembered lying in bed. It was a happy memory... and now she was awake. She opened up her laptop and began to write.  
  
~  
  
She came out of the store in deep thought. She was thinking of course, of how furious she was at that idiot for saying things like that to her mom. He had seemed all right at first, but how could she like anyone who her mother didn't like? That was violating whatever rules she and her mother shared in the extremely strange mother daughter best friends relationship they had. She didn't even see him coming up to her.  
"Hey."  
"Hey yourself," she said tartly.   
"What are you doing out here?" he asked. He sounded so *very*, *very concerned*.  
"I needed something for school. What about you?" she replied.  
"Oh yeah, same thing."   
"Uh huh. So, that was quite a disappearing act you pulled the other night," she was finding herself quite ready to get into a fight with Luke's nephew, the boy she was supposed to respect, be friends with, etc., he was Luke's nephew!   
"Potlucks and Tupperware parties aren't really my thing."   
"Too cool for school, huh?"   
"Yes, that is me."   
"What are you doing?" her patience was running out.  
"Oh this? Nothing. Just another little disappearing act," her anger was disappearing. Furious with herself, she tried to call it back.  
"Little tip?" she said.  
"Yeah?"   
"If you ever want to speak to me again, don't pull that out of my ear."   
"So I assume the nose is off limits too?" this was turning into a banter. The sort of banter she could have only with her mother. Feel safe within the conversation, the intelligent exchanges of simple words locking out intruders.   
"Any place you wouldn't naturally find a coin, let's leave it that way."   
"So what are you doing now?"   
"I have some homework to finish."   
"Okay, then I'll leave you this last little trick," he pulled out a book. It took her a second to recognize it.   
"You bought a copy? I told you I'd lend you mine," it already looked worn. Maybe he was a bit of a reader.  
"It is yours," finally. Another excuse to be angry. She felt, however, only the tiniest glimmer of anger returning. And it wasn't even anger, it was... it wasn't anything, she told herself quickly.  
"You stole my book," she said at last.   
"Nope, borrowed it."   
"Okay, that's not called a trick, that's called a felony."   
"I just wanted to put some notes in the margins for you."   
"What?" she leafed through the pages and read a comment he'd written - the same thing she'd realized after quite a few rereads," "you've read this before." Now she had a definite emotion: delight.   
"About forty times."  
"I thought you said you didn't read much."   
"Well, what is much? Goodnight Rory."   
"Goodnight Dodger."   
"Dodger?"   
"Figure it out."   
"Oliver Twist."   
She smiled and nodded. They both walked away and she didn't even notice that the smile didn't leave her face until that night.  
  
*  
  
"Okay, Jess, here's one for you."  
"What?" he asked, wiping away at the diner counter and avoiding her eyes.  
"If Ayn Rand is so terrible, why does she use..."  
"Enough with Any Rand," he said, throwing the dishrag at her. She threw it at his face and stared at his turned back.  
"Jess..."  
He spun around and looked at her.   
*At least he makes eye contact* she thought.  
"How about this one. If a snowman's head falls off in the middle of the field and only one hooligan is there to hear it - the hooligan who committed the terrible crime of beheading the mound of snow with the professionally made little carrot nose - does the crime still count?"  
"If no one catches the hooligan then it's not his crime, is it? Because no one can prove he did it. Maybe he didn't do it."  
She smiled, "I think he did."   
"Think what you like."  
"I think it was actually very nice of the hooligan."   
"Hey, if the hypothetical hooligan did do it, it's only because the hypothetical girl deserved it."   
She felt something melt within her when he said that. Something... she wasn't sure what... but something. She suddenly felt the strong desire to go home and lay down and eat ice cream and tell her mother everything. Not the kind of thing she wanted to want right now.  
Instead she got up and gave the hooligan a smile before leaving the diner and heading off to school.   
Once she was directly below the HARDWARE sign she turned abruptly around and sapphire eyes met a pair of dark ones that were staring very intently back.  
She fell into her car and drove away faster then usual.   
Her writer's heart was coming up with a thousand cheesy expressions and not a single one that made her very happy: no matter how fast she went, she wasn't going to get any faster then the thumping in her chest right now.  
  
~  
  
"Mrs. Forrester!" Dean said when he woke up late that night and found his wife bleary eyed and staring at her laptop screen. He glanced at what she'd written and saw only one line before she closed the screen... "Just wanted to," and then she kissed him.  
"What are you writing?" he asked.  
"Nothing," she shut down the laptop and walked to the bed, "goodnight."  
"I have to go to the store," he said, "I just remembered we don't have any more coffee mix."  
"You do that."  
He smiled at her and left. She was the one he loved, she was. He pulled out of the driveway and repeated it in his head, even spoke out loud in the solitude of the driver's seat, "I love her, I love her."  
  
  
Plunk. Plunk.   
Rory grabbed her pillow, covered her ears with it and buried her head as far into the mattress as possible.   
"Go away!" she murmured, sleep already claiming her.  
Plunk. Plunk.   
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and curled up as small as she could. If she was smaller, then her ears couldn't hear things as loud. Oh, for the logic of the sleepy.  
Plunk.  
She rubbed the dust from her eyes and sat up in bed, letting loose a string of profaniti. Not exactly fitting for one of such a composed state in being awoken. She didn't exactly take after her mother. It must come with old age. She was such an old lady now. One profanity, two profaniti.   
Once satisfied, she lay back down in her bed.   
"Hey! You!" someone was calling from outside. The Plunker. They would have to wait their turn. She was lined up until morning. The girl fell back into her bed and greeted the date she was planning on staying out all night with.  
"Hello, Sleep. You look lovely tonight."   
She let her eyes drift shut and pulled Colonel Cluckers into a tighter hold.   
Pl-  
"Death to all Plunkies," she thought as the noise resounded throughout her airy bedroom. Plunk. At last she pulled herself up and walked to the window.  
"What the hell is going on you little.... insignificant.... little plunking ...worm..." she yawned and opened her window. Rubbing her eyes she finished her round of insults with - for good and degrading measure -, "kid!"  
"I missed you to," she heard. She was already half asleep so she simply opened her eyes then leaned out the window to look at whoever was there. Her body wasn't awake yet and as she threw her head out the now open widow she nearly toppled out. The Plunker had climbed up though, and she fell into someone instead. Her brain refused to digest the smell of his shirt, it was complaining that it was to early in the morning for thinking. So she simply raised her eyes and suddenly felt very, very, very awake.  
"What are you doing here?" was all she could say.  
"I just needed to tell you something."  
"What?"  
"You can stop crying, I'm back."  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Nine: You Can Stop Crying, I'm Back  
  
  
"You can stop crying, I'm back," was what he said.  
"Well, come in. I guess we'll need to find you a hotel," was what she said. He climbed into her room, not believing he was standing in Rory Gilmore's bedroom. For the second time in two and a half days. In two different bedrooms. And he couldn't believe that there wasn't some sort of awkward silence that they tried to fill with, "so how have you been" and "how's work". But he had never had an awkward silence with Rory. Why should this be different?  
"What, I can't stay here?" and suddenly he felt seventeen, dodging what Rory intended and buying himself as much time as possible with this marvelous creature. No reason that this was any different.  
"Don't you wish. No, hotel. Ah, but I have to get dressed... so I'll get dressed..." he stared openly at her, "in the bathroom."  
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," he smiled at her and opened the bedroom door. A look of worry flickered across her face. Like she was remembering something.  
"No," she said quickly, "you can't go downstairs. What's the point in my *guest* moving when I, marvelous host that I am, can simply change in this closet..." she walked over to her closet and threw open the door to reveal about enough space to hold her legs. She then grabbed some clothes out of her drawer and disappeared into the closet to find the door would not fully shut.  
"Jess, could you hold this door closed?" she asked. He leaned against the door and listened to wire hangers topple off metal poles and bang against Rory.   
"Why don't you leave on your stunning Hello Kitty pajamas and shock the town?"   
"I don't think they'd notice. They really only pay attention to big things... like young girls not taking their husband's last names."  
He laughed, "and who was the rebel who requested that?" sharp intake of breath from the closet, "Ms. Shoopa Coopa," came a quick reply.  
"This town is messed up, then. Shoopa Coopa?"  
"I know, why would someone want to keep that name?"  
"If it was a real name."  
"I was going for humor there."   
"And was there a scandal when you requested a bookstore that sold more than drugstore paperbacks in this town?" he didn't know why he had changed the subject. It was a profoundly seventeen-ish thing to do, not let the conversation settle, never let himself reveal much. Towards the end of when he'd known her, the topics had remained in their little chats for more than five minutes.   
"You noticed?"  
"The eyes of a reader never miss and town seeped in ignorance," he had observed some of the shops on his drive in - and the bookstore seemed to be located in the front of Rite Aid.  
"I haven't really requested anything to improve our literary structure yet," she said, and soundly very disappointed in herself. He changed the topic again.  
"How long have you lived here?"  
"About two years," she answered, stepping back into the room.   
She did look beautiful. She looked ravishing, stunning, lots of verbs and he thanked the Jess Show's creators for letting them talk as if there were no memories between them.  
Rory looked different. She looked a bit less naïve, and she looked tired. Her skin remained pale and flawless, yet her eyes were weary and not quite as shimmering as they used to be. She was slender and the timid child of the twilight, but the hints of the days worries were so prominent in something in her. He'd like to say that he could remember her so well and her image had so burned in his memory that he could tell these things without the slightest hints. But even a stranger could see the unhappiness eating away at her heart.  
Her eyes had always been what he'd loved the most about her. He had found that he was unafraid to lose himself in their sapphire depths, and he would do anything to earn a glance from them. Or make the slight crinkle appear on the edges when he did something so very wrong, so very Un-Stars-Hollow-Ish, something only they two could laugh at, consider wonderful, share as an inside joke whenever their eyes met.  
So it killed him now.  
But there was another thing.   
Her hair had never been something he had taken much notice of. Of course it was soft, perfect, impossibly wonderful for just a head of hair, blah blah blah. Yet all of Rory fit those qualifications.   
Yet now her hair stood out as it was pulled back into a simple, plain, victorian housewife bun. It wasn't Rory.  
"So," he had been staring, but it could pass as typical Jess behavior, "what do you say we bail?"  
Her eyes widened and she let her lips creep up at the edges, remembering that night they'd first met, "I know these windows open."  
Then she smiled and her features of fatigue melted. She was simply the Rory Gilmore he was *in love with*.   
And the smile lit up her whole face.   
  
  
He had been shocked when Rory was the first to jump out the window. She had scrambled down with clumsy and rolling movements, and he had laughed and flaunted his wall-dropping abilities in her face.  
When they at last reached the sidewalk (Rory having fallen on top of Jess) he was hungry. And he was sure she was too.  
"So, where can you eat in this hellhole?"  
"There's a Starbucks..."  
"Rory Gilmore reduced to chain coffee. Never thought I'd see the day."  
"It's open pretty late," she went on, ignoring him pointedly, "and we can get real food."  
"I'm all for it."   
"We shouldn't eat there, though."  
"Why not?"  
"...uh... it's not a nice place," Rory, you are an awful liar, was all he thought. But he kept his mouth closed.  
"So where should we eat?"  
There was a second where Rory stared at him and then opened her mouth, "I know a nice little place."   
"As opposed to your not nice place."  
"Exactly."  
"Take me there."  
  
"This is terrible," he said after his first sip of orange juice.  
"Isn't it?" she said, gloating.  
Jess and Rory were seated on a log in a clearing in a forest. Rory had pulled him off the road and into the woods that surrounded the town. And then she had sat him down on a log in a place with a canopy thick enough to make it hard to distinguish her features. However, the tone in her voice, literally, spoke for itself.  
"You shouldn't have gotten orange juice. Juice is the healthy competitor in the race for popular beverages. Coffee should prevail."  
"In this case, I'm rooting for the other side. This is the single worst Styrofoam container of orange juice that I have ever tasted."  
"Shouldn't the Styrofoam container tell you something?"  
"That I'm a fool?"  
"Maybe."  
She leaned her hand against his shoulder then, and let it rest there as if this was the most natural position in the world.  
They sat there in silence for what must have been twenty minutes. And then suddenly Rory spoke, breaking the peace he felt with the exact words she said. Not her voice. Rory's breathing or Rory's chatter, there wasn't a way he could choose. The words were so foreign and not like Rory that even her musical voice couldn't make them any better.  
"Well, we can't have you loitering around here all night, I guess we should get you a hotel. Like I said before," her voice was embarrassed, ashamed.  
"Well Rory, it's nice to know that you don't want me spending the night out here."  
She looked slightly offended, then brightened, "wouldn't that be nice? Sleeping out here, in My Spot, just you and the squirrels and the beautiful air and the night. Like you're wrapped up in a silk sheet and a velvet blanket. I should do that sometime."  
"Hey, Gilmore, there's no time like the present. Why don't you and I sleep out here tonight? I'm sure there has got to be at least two sleeping bags in this place."  
Several emotions danced on her face. Rory was not one for concealing feelings, "no... I can't... I have to... you see..." she seemed lost on how to begin her sentence so he forced a laugh and gave a mild-toned, "that's fine."  
"Good. So, I'll take you to a hotel. And we can get together tomorrow morning. Unless you have plans..."  
"Rory, the only reason I would actually come to a place like this would be to see you."  
She smiled up at him and then made her way back into the town. He followed her like an obedient puppy.  
  
When they reached the jeep, she stopped and her jaw dropped.  
"You have mom's car."  
"Yea."  
"Why?"  
"She lent it to me."  
And then he watched as she slumped over, realizing that this was going to be a game of dodging any comments or questions about what their life had been since the night five years ago.  
She smiled again and took his hand, "the hotel here has terrible service."  
  
  
Over the next week, Jess had a better time then he'd had in five years. He and Rory made fun of the so-called-books that the Rite Aid sold, ate at Starbucks, visited Her Spot, and enjoyed the banters of half a decade ago. They never talked about what had happened to him once he'd left, what she'd done, how Luke was, how Lorelai was, and they were very careful to stay away from memories. Because as many as there were that had turned Jess' life into *something* there was always that little person that could've wrecked the simple friendship they had managed to rebuild from the ruins of everything from Washington to the Diner Farewell.   
It wasn't exactly forgiveness, as neither Rory nor Jess was sure anymore who needed to be forgiven. And the little bit of warmth they'd managed to rekindle from the ashes of the huge fireplace was so delicate that the slightest breath could blow it out.   
The Salsvillians (Rory had shared with him her nickname : Sals-villains) were distant to Jess and took no notice of him. They never said hello, they never told him to keep away from their Rory, and they never even looked at him.   
So they were safe. Rory had kept Jess to herself... when she saw friends on the street she had hurried on after waving, as if she was afraid of something they could reveal to Jess. And every night after the day they'd spent together she'd vanish into the place that now was home; the ugly ugly house. And in the morning there she would be, at Starbucks, waiting at "their table."   
He didn't ask her anything. He was to afraid of tipping the scales out of balance and sending himself plummeting back into a Roryless world.  
He had her back. And it didn't matter to him how little of her recent life he truly knew, how little she really did belong to him now. He would continue this charade of the same ole friendship as long as he could. The smallest word could tear her away.  
He was doing something that he had only done once - his seventeenth year.  
But even though he never would admit it, he was still not writing his own lines and letting the script rule from the shadows the pathetic excuse he had for a life.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Ten: Married In Blue  
  
"Okay, now, I have to put this in this bowl... or is it that bowl? How much am I supposed to put in, speaking of whiches and whats... Is that a two or five? And that, three or an eight! Three or eight!" she demanded of the kitchen, "God, why haven't they invented inflammable recipes! Idiots!"   
Rory was standing at her stove, and using it for the first time. The devils hands had already taken off a small portion of hair in the front, and had consumed the entire right side of the recipe for whatever she was making. She'd forgotten by now what it was and the aroma suggested only that she was trying to recreate in a dish the burning of Rome.   
Dean, of course, was the reason Rory was standing in the blackened kitchen.  
Naturally her over possessive boyfr - no, husband, had grown suspicious over her all-day absences. She was making him dinner to soothe his worries.   
Her excuse had been that she was job-hunting. He never believed a word she said anyway, so hidden beneath his shifty glances was 'she never lies, but I have to act like she's a liar anyway'.  
She was safe. For the time being.  
Yet another side of her was scoffing at her attempt to hide Jess. You're not doing anything wrong, it said. Have you ever, in any way, committed any form of adultery. Are you entitled to tell your husband everything?   
In a true, trusting, marriage, yes.  
But she was a liar. Because, even though she never even let herself think it, it wasn't Dean she felt bad lying to.   
It was Jess.  
When her half-closed eyes had seen his face, she'd wanted to throw her arms around him and whisper in his ear how much she'd missed him. She'd wanted to scream at him for leaving her, then smile and say she'd forgiven him. Any sort of emotional exchange would've suited her.  
But no. All they had now was this small little thing that wasn't allowed any sort of feelings at all. Not friendship-wise, not anything wise.  
She'd kept him out of her house and away from the mantelpiece photos. She had covered when she'd almost said how she was married. She had allowed them one memory only. An innocent memory of a Jess furious with the world and an innocent Rory incredulous at the idea of prowling Stars Hollow at night. Before he had begun to change her and she'd begun to change him. Though she couldn't take to much responsibility for "nice Jess", the post-kiss Jess. She liked to think he'd done that because he wanted to. Maybe even for Luke.  
Even though she knew it was all for her.  
She hadn't told him how special Her Spot was. How he was the only one she could've trusted to share in it's splendor.   
She was so very lucky this town didn't gossip. All she had to do was make sure Dean didn't see her with him, and she was fine.  
She hadn't asked him about the jeep.   
"Maybe he already knows," she mumbled, stirring the whatthehellisthat-in-a-pan around, "he has Mom's jeep. He must've seen the pictures mom has. Of the wedding."  
"I'm home!" came a voice from the front door. A voice that didn't expect an answer. But she had stayed away from Jess today. Her explanatory phone call hadn't received any questions. As was expected. No questions asked, that was the "relationship" she and Jess had.   
What sort of friendship was that?  
  
  
Lorelai Gilmore lay on her bed, her fingers tracing the face of her daughter, standing in a blue dress and being towered over by her husband. The picture only came out of it's drawer when Lorelai was in the mood for a good crying session.  
Her daughter hadn't been married in white.   
Rory was supposed to have had the perfect perfect life. She was going to grow up, she was going to see it through high school, she wasn't going to get pregnant before she was respectfully married, she was going to go through college. She was going to have a job. She was going to be famous. She would find herself a wealthy husband she was in love with and they would have a huge wedding in a big church with stain-glass windows. The guests would all be famous people who really didn't care that Rory was getting married, only cared about being in the newspaper (there were going to be a lot of photographers there, but only the best to cover *Rory Gilmore*'s wedding). But in the front row would be Rory's real friends and family, and they would love that she was having the perfect wedding and they'd behave themselves throughout the wedding (at least, good behavior as far as Stars Hollow goes).  
And she was going to raise an actress and a president, and she was going to live her life happily, and she was going to be everything Lorelai wasn't.  
Maybe Lorelai had been a bit to concentrated on making sure she didn't end up like her.  
Of course she hadn't been the stern mother *her* mother had been, but she had done little things to push Rory into a bright bright future.   
Dean had been perfect boyfriend. And she was so happy when Rory and him began to have a nice little relationship. Sweet kisses and swooning "I love you's".  
And then Jess had shown up and began to punch holes in the balloon that was Rory's perfect future. Lorelai had been so mad at him, and she had done the wrong thing, she knew.   
A tear dropped on the picture.   
Jess would've been a typical boyfriend. He had reformed and they would've had a little dating history and then would've agreed to remain just friends. Lorelai could see it now, the breakup. Rory and Jess would blurt it out and the same time and then they'd smile and hug and be back to a buddy-buddy relationship. And Rory would move on and her life would remain unscarred.  
But Lorelai had refused to see that. She saw only her daughter with a nice, big round stomach. And she had shoved Jess out her daughter's life as fast as she could.  
And somehow, that had led to her daughter, her perfect daughter, the daughter she loved more than anything, marrying the freakishly tall Bag Boy. The first boy she'd ever dated.   
And turned her Rory's perfect, wonderful, formal, full-of-celebrities wedding into some stupid affair in a place that might has well have been a garage.  
And Lorelai knew it was her that had melted the wedding dress from a beautiful puff of silk and lace into a plain blue dress made of cotton.  
  
  
That morning Rory snuck away through the morning fog to her spot and found Jess there, leaned against a tree. She tried to smile and went to sit next to him. She was crying by the time she had reached the log.  
"Hey Rory."  
"Hey Jess..." her voice cracked and she buried her face in her hands. He stroked her hair. She looked up at him and gave him the most pathetic of smiles.  
"Don't waste your energy on smiling like that Rory."  
"That's the Rory smile nowadays."  
"Don't say that. That's like forcing my admission to the Weepers club right now."  
"Jess, just admit it. I have the power to make you cry."  
"Ugh. When you phrase it like that it sounds so unprofessional."  
"The truth hurts."  
Silence.  
Suddenly she sat up, "Jess, I need you to promise me something."  
"Rory..."  
She was perfectly aware she was violating the unspoken rules they'd established, "it's called throwing caution to the wind for a few moments. And this is serious. I need you to promise me that you won't leave me ever again."  
"Isn't that Gone With the Wind of you?" he was smirking.  
"Yes. It is."  
He looked at her pleading features and gave her the smallest of smiles, "fine."  
"Promise."  
"I promise I won't ever... leave you. I am so disgusted with myself right now."  
"Think how I must feel."  
And then his lips parted. She wondered what he was about to say. But without warning, the fear of losing Jess came back and she stopped whatever might have possibly been said.   
"Okay, we can go back to normal now." A forced smile from him.  
"Good. Because kodak moments really aren't my thing."  
She butted her head against his arm. And then leaned against him to watch the sun rise.  
It felt all to natural, and wonderful...  
And extremely inappropriate for a no feelings relationship.  
The sun was just beginning to peek through the trees. She reached the back of her head and finally freed her hair from it's drawn back prison.  
  
"The sun has arisen, and we can either go to Starbucks or go home. Or stay here."  
A sudden deja-vu came to Rory.  
Turn right, her heart and mind were screaming, turn right! The shouting, the damn furry thing.   
Turn right!  
"I have to go home," she said, "but I'll walk you back to the hotel."  
"That's right," disappointment was obvious in his voice, "you haven't seen it since I've moved in."  
"I'd love to see what you've done with the place."  
"Well, with a bed, two chairs and television, the possibilities are endless," he said. She was already smiling, and she stood up to lead him out of the woods. The trail was hard to find.  
  
"So this is your lovely little home,"  
"Next time you'll have to show me yours."  
She looked up at him and shook her head gently. She wanted to end this stupid little mimic of friendship right now and tell him the truth - the lies were eating away at the edges already. But she was to afraid to lose this... as pitiful as it may be.  
He shrugged his shoulders and flopped down onto the couch.  
There was the place they endured their first and most awkward silence.  
"Rory..."   
"Jess..."  
It was over then as he half-smiled and took out a book. Reading together. Something she had always loved doing. The five seconds that had just passed seemed like an eternity, and she cared not to suffer that again.   
"Where can I find a decent book?" she said, knowing very well the Jess she had known would not travel without one.  
"My bag... front pocket. I must have something in there."  
She left the room with a nod to him and opened up the first pocket. Nothing in here but a shoe box... maybe he had his books in there.  
She gasped as she pulled off the lid.   
On the top layer was pictures of her and Jess together. There were only about ten: neither one had been to interested in posing for cameras (not that anyone would have volunteered to take their picture anyway). Most of these were from the time Rory was in New York. Avid tourist that she was, she'd brought along a disposable camera (she hadn't told him it wasn't for him. It had been for her mother's graduation. Now she felt guilty as she realized there could be so many more in here if she had realized she would never make it to the graduation and needn't conserve film).  
Underneath the pictures was a stack of papers with a single blue sheet of printing paper on top.   
Writing To Rory  
From Jess Mariano  
She realized that this was NOT the book he intended for her reading. She also realized that her oh-so-disobdient fingers were already flipping the 'cover' off, and gingerly picking up the first sheet of paper.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Eleven: Erasing The Truth  
  
The jeep was still parked in front of the motel.   
Jess tossed the keys up in the air and caught them. He glanced out his window at it sitting so calmly in the street.  
Just waiting for him to screw things up. Patiently waiting for him to fly from her side again. He could already see it rolling down the unpleasantly silent street. And it was just waiting. Just waiting and waiting and waiting.   
Not that he had anything against the poor jeep. It had been nothing but helpful to him. It had born him all the way to California from Connecticut. It was a symbol of Lorelai's trust.  
Yet it was his way of escape. And personally he found that he was too tempted by escape.  
And not escape from this stupid town - which he had discovered he hated twice as much as he had originally hated Stars Hollow - he wanted to escape from Rory. He wanted to get away from those constant pangs of guilt: you stayed fixed on her for five pathetic years. You worked in a underpaid coffee shop so you could be reminded of her. She's moved on, she moved away, she...  
And then there was what was keeping him here.  
He really knew nothing about Rory. Nothing more than he had known since the night in the diner when she kissed him for the last time. And as much as it tore him apart to be so close, yet so far....  
Oh God. If his thoughts were a book he'd be erasing and scribbling and erasing over that last line. So close, yet so far? Cliché, cheesy, and the kind of line he and Rory would never stand for in a book.  
Why couldn't anyone have come up with another saying for that? That was something that they could do together tomorrow. Come up with sensible expressions in exchange for painfully disgusting time-honored phrases.   
But he was just that - near and far. He would sit next to her in the beautiful place that made her happy, she would rest her head on his arm and he could feel her breath as well as see it as it floated away. But then she would run off, go back to her home and disappear entirely. And he would realize that the moments were nothing compared to how much she had cut herself off from him. How little she let him know.  
He still wouldn't give up those moments for anything. Not anything.  
Erase. Cross out. Erase.  
  
Rory wouldn't look at him later that day. She stared into her coffee, out the window, anywhere but at him.  
"Rory?" he asked.  
"Yes?" she said, her head snapping up. Once their eyes met she looked away again.   
"Are you all right?"   
She gave him a feeble smile, "no. Not really."  
"What is it?"  
"A whole new Jess. Concerned, considerate..."  
"It's been five years, Rory."  
"That's just it!" she cried, suddenly very in the moment, "we haven't seen in each other in five years? I mean, how do we know if we haven't changed? How do we know if one of us... say me... is an evil monstrous evil embodiment of... evil?" he tried not to laugh, "Maybe one of us... say you... is still the same person that they used to be... that used to be friends with... say me... but the other one... me ... is all different. You shouldn't like that person anymore, right?"  
He had no idea what she was saying, "all right... so you don't want us to continue these small movements of friendship?"  
"It's not that!" she said hurriedly, "no, not that at all. I just think that we should reconsider our feelings. For each other."  
"Well, Rory, I think our feelings for each other are pretty obvious."  
Her lips parted. She smiled then, "I guess they are," she said softly.  
"Right," he said, swallowing, "if we were so desperate for a more close relationship - in friendship or otherwise - don't you think that one of us might've acted on those feelings by now?"  
A look of surprise flitted across her eyes, but the smile stayed plastered on her face, "exactly my point."  
"Good."  
"Good."  
She began to write on her coffee cup.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Writing on a coffee cup," she answered, "I want you to read this..." she suddenly crossed out whatever it was she had written, "uh... something... I picked up at a bookstore the other day."  
"Where is it?" he asked, immediately curious about the coffee cup.  
"At my house..." she said, "but we can't go there..."  
"Rory, can we talk?"   
"That I would like."  
"Okay. We'll go to the hotel if we can't go to your house."  
"Okay," she said in a meek voice. He held open the Starbucks door for her. She went through and muttered something about meeting him back here in twenty minutes. He nodded, but she was already running away.   
With twenty minutes to kill he wandered back to their table and reached for the coffee cup. Another hand met his. He looked up and saw a waitress - maybe seventeen - smiling guiltily.   
"Everyone in town wonders about Rory's coffee cups. She's never left one here before. But I saw you two talking. It's probably none of my business to read it."  
"No, it probably isn't."  
"Just... could you tell me what it's about? A diary entry, a poem, a picture, anything?"  
He looked at her quizzically, "and who are you to read Rory's coffee cups?"  
"I'm Diana," she said, shaking his hand, "I've been serving Rory coffee for two years."  
"So you can be trusted," he looked down at the coffee cup. She had thoroughly crossed out everything that had been written. All he saw was one word: lying.  
His imagination took flight. What had she been lying about? Did she think he was lying?  
He sighed and fell into his chair. The knowledge was nothing new. He hadn't told Rory the exact truth about his life, and she had done the same to him. It wasn't exactly lying, but it came close enough.   
"Diana?" he called out.  
"Yes sir?"  
"Jess."  
"Yes Jess?" she fought back a smile at the rhyme.   
"Can I ask you something about Rory?"  
She looked at him, "I don't know. Should you?"  
"It's not anything personal."  
"Then go right ahead," she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.  
"Is Rory..."  
Speak of the devil. The door banged open and Rory ran in, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of Starbucks.  
"There is something I need to tell you," she said as they hurried along, ignoring traffic lights and unaware of all other pedestrians, "and there is only one way I am going to be able to tell it to you. And there is only one time that I am going to be able to tell it to you, and that is now. And if I wait to long, I will not be able to tell you."  
She came to an abrupt halt in front of a brown door. It wasn't big, but to Jess it seemed to be looming above him. She took out a key and unlocked the door, careful, he noticed, to cover up her left hand.   
And then they walked into her house.  
  
The inside was unimpressive. Just a few photos here and there - none of which he paid attention to. His gaze was fixated on Rory's fist... clenched so tight he couldn't see her fingers.   
They came into the living room. She gestured awkwardly to the couch and they both sat. She looked up at him and began to babble incoherently.  
"Okay, Jess, I am going to say this in one breath and you're going to hate me and I am so sorry and I hate myself and I hope you hate me and I miss my mom and I..." he looked at her, "right. I'm..."  
The door opened, "Mrs. Rory Forrester, I'm home!"   
Jess' jaw dropped.  
Bag Boy stood in front of him and Rory. Taller than ever - if that was possible. And he looked.... upset.  
Jess quickly turned away from Rory and dropped her hands.   
"That's what I was going to tell you," she said, staring at her feet.  
"Ah," Jess said. He was speechless. And then he said the first thing that popped into his head, "why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
Chapter Twelve: Bumping Into Bag Boys  
  
  
"Is there any affordable gas in this town?"  
"Why?" Diana looked up from wiping tables, "are you leaving?"  
"The thing I came for turned out not to be here," he answered simply, sitting down at one of the empty tables.   
"What do you mean?" she sat down across from him and smiled, "Rory?"  
"She's married," he said quietly.  
Diana's head snapped up, "you didn't know she was married?" if Rory wasn't a person she cared about she'd be grabbing a soda and sitting down to watch the soap opera.  
"And it's not that. I could deal with it if she was married to anybody else. But married to Bag Boy? Is the universe trying to rub it in?"  
"Dean's not my favorite guy either."  
"So the nickname stuck?"  
"What do you mean?" she asked, "he's a bag boy here, too."  
He laughed at that. It was a dry, hollow, laugh, but it was a laugh just the same, "I always imagined he'd be something for her."  
"He's a nice man," she said, as if it offered any comfort.   
"That's just what I couldn't stand about him," she looked up and kept her sympathetic face on for the whole monologue. The guy looked like he needed somebody to show sincerity, "I was seventeen years old. I hated the world. I had moved to this hellish plastic Hallmark card town. I was miserable. And then I met Rory Gilmore. Everybody loved Rory Gilmore. She was nice, she got perfect grades, and she the perfect little girl. I was so pathetic. And she had that idiot boyfriend, about twice her size, always following her everywhere she went. And so he's finally snagged her for good."  
"I'm sorry, Jess."  
"You win some, you lose some," he said as he stood up.  
"What did you win?"  
"I got to see her again."  
"And you lost?"  
"The chance of ever seeing her again," he half smiled at her.   
"Not much of a win, huh?" she said.  
She shuddered after he left. Rory's life was not so much of a mystery anymore. She had thought that maybe Jess could get her out of Salsville. No such luck for Rory.   
The waitress took off her acorn and turned around the "we're open" sign. Pulling on her coat she shivered again. To end up like Rory Gilmore would not be a happy fate.  
  
Rory sat in her bedroom, knees curled to her chest. She hadn't left the house all day. It was beginning to cool down and she'd turned on the heat for comfort. Just a light setting so the room didn't become too unbearable. In Stars Hollow the winters had been about the hum of the radiator, and the snow. Winters here weren't very cold. Or very pleasant. A few trees were added to the households. The stores put up christmas lights. The Goods and Gorp even played carols on a broken tape that skipped every time the word "the" came up.  
The radiator hissed. She wanted to bury into her covers and live forever in her bed, away from all the hurt of the outside world.  
Dean hadn't come home yet. She didn't know where he was and found she didn't particularly care. He had just turned and left the house after he had found her there with Jess. Jess had done the same. Without a word. Left her alone in the huge house that she hated and hated her.  
She crawled out from under the huge sheet and made her way down to the living room. Her slippers didn't make any noise as she padded down the stairs. As slow and as solemn as death itself.   
She came into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was this horrible bright yellow that had faded into a... dull bright yellow. It looked, to her, like a sick canary.   
Rory reached under the couch and pulled out a huge dusty box. She pulled off the tape. It gave no fight, the stickiness had probably worn off years ago.   
She opened the first huge binder that came out of the cardboard box. It was filled with baby pictures. The tool shed. The wonderful tool shed. She glanced around her and shuddered, not daring to let the thoughts enter her mind. She wasn't in a mood for crying.  
The next binder was her all around Stars Hollow - as a toddler, a seven-year old, and then her in the Crap Shack. The Gilmore's first real house.  
She closed the binders quickly and replaced them. Now was not a time to stray into the past.  
She had to think about her life. Her marriage was in the position to be saved, and the past held nothing but memories and...  
Jess still loved her.   
The thought came from nowhere. Or maybe just from thinking of the horrible memories. Such wonderful memories! Her head was babbling. She was even babbling as she analyzed her babbling.   
She needed fresh air. A walk.   
Jess still loved her. The thought was taunting her.  
Should have never read those stupid letters.  
He still loves you, came the sing song voice.  
None of your business, reading the letters.   
He said he still loved you! He said it! But he didn't say it to you!  
She opened the door and paused in the doorway. The crisp air reawakened her dulled senses.   
Do you still love him?  
  
He did not mean to bump into Rory.   
He meant to drive to Stars Hollow, drop off the jeep, avoid meeting any people, get back to New York, and start over. New York City was full of new things for him to find. He could start writing or something. Quit the coffee shop.  
Instead he crashed into Rory. The perfect way to start getting her off his mind.  
She was walking slowly, eyes gazing into the night sky. She looked lost and helpless and she didn't look like she had any destination in mind.   
He was hurrying down the desolate sidewalk, eyes down. He didn't see her, she didn't see him. Not until they were both lying on the sidewalk and glanced up to see who they could yell at for being careless.  
Her eyes were big with surprise. He sat up but stayed there, frozen. She crawled over to where he was sitting and hugged her knees to her chest.   
"I'm sorry for bumping into you, ma'am," he said, looking straight ahead.  
"Jess!"   
"People these days are so clumsy. Like me, they just walk down the streets, careless, and then bump into innocent young ladies like yourself."  
"You can't give me the casual treatment! That's not fair!"  
He got up and wiped imaginary dirt off his shirt, "once again, I'm sorry. I hope that we can meet again under more pleasant circumstances."  
*You're squirming. I've never seen you squirm before. It's very entertaining.*  
He was already turning away.  
"I don't," she said icily as she stood up and came to stand next to him. Then she reached forward and prepared to slap him.  
"Rory?"   
Her hand lost momentum and paused on his face, "Dean."   
Her husband smiled coldly at her, "sorry to interrupt."  
"Oh, you're not interrupting anything," Jess assured him, "I was just leaving."  
Dean forgot about Rory then, "it was nice having you."  
Jess rolled his eyes, "sheesh, look at you, towering over me, acting like we're seventeen. Grow up," Dean's eyes narrowed, "yes," he went on sarcastically, "your wife and I are having an affair. All the clues point to it. I never was able to stand you, Mr. Dean, and I never will be able to,"  
He turned to Rory, "and you. You said to me that you hated your life here. You told me that you were unhappy. And I don't blame you for hating it. But it's your fault, Rory. You're the one who married the Bag Boy."  
She grabbed Dean's arm, ignoring how much he had just hurt her, "Dean, you can't believe what he said. I love you, I've always loved you..."  
"Whatever Rory," he tugged loose of her and began to walk away.   
"DEAN!" she screamed, her pace quickening as she ran after him, "Dean!" he entered the house and slammed the door. She banged on it and the gates that had been holding back her tears burst open, and the tears burst forth.  
The door remained closed. Tall and impassive.  
She mutely walked down the sidewalk. She stopped when she came to Jess. She looked up at him and stared, her eyes and face glistening in the dim light of the Goods and Gorp. She stayed staring at him for few seconds before she walked down the street.   
"Rory, wait!" he called, his idiocy just hitting him. She continued walking and stopped when she reached the jeep. Tugging open the door she climbed inside and closed the door. He heard the engine come to life.  
And he ran after her.  
The car began to roll down the street. He ran after it and grabbed hold of the side door, then opened it and jumped in.   
She didn't look at him, "You could've hurt yourself."  
"I live on the edge. And I'm not jumping out."  
"You do know I hate you right now?"  
He didn't answer. Instead he just watched as she drove the jeep down an road free of destination: turn right at this fork, left at this one, take this exit, turn off here.  
After what seemed like years he finally spoke.  
"Do you have any idea where we are?"  
She still wouldn't look at him, "nope."  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Thirteen: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas  
  
Rory's knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. The Diego vu of the day was close to driving her insane. Dean and Jess fighting. Jess running after her. Jess and her in a car. None of these were pleasant memories.  
Add to that they were lost. And it was her fault.   
He hadn't tried to get her to speak. They had been driving and driving and it was a silent night in the Gilmore jeep. She was so mad at him for what he did. Dean had been hovering on the edge since the beginning. And Jess had finally pushed him over. She would have been happy of this earlier. But she had decided about five hours ago that she wanted to make her marriage work. She had loved Dean, and Dean had loved her, and she had been truly happy with him... once. If they were married, there had to still be something there. She was going to find that spark and blow on it until it lit a fire and her cheeks were red.   
Yes, she was sure she loved Dean. Of COURSE she loved Dean.  
Of course that was before Jess came and stomped on the spark.   
So why was she in a car with him? Driving away from her husband when she should be with him, starting over, soothing his fears? She loved HIM, after all.  
She was with Jess in her mother's car on a road that could've been in Canada for all she knew of their location.   
Oh yes, she loved Dean. She knew she loved Dean. It was perfectly right that she told Dean she loved him, because she did love him. She did. Yes, she loved him. He was her husband, after all. Why wouldn't she love her husband?  
"Rory..." came the voice next to her.  
"Don't say anything to me, Jess," she said evenly. Calm and cool. She wasn't going to explode. That would start a fight. And what she wanted now was to put distance between them. And every fight she'd had with Jess had led her closer to him.  
"I won't after this, I promise."  
"What is it, then?" trying to make her voice as stone like as possible.  
"You see, the car..."  
She was thrown back into her seat as the wheels grabbed onto the concrete and the engine shut off.  
"Is out of gas," she finished.   
  
She opened the door and jumped out. He followed her wordlessly. They each went in opposite directions down the road and called out, searched the night for signs of life. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks and she felt as the wind froze them on her skin. It was colder here. She rubbed her arms and wished that she'd taken the time to pack before she ran away.  
Jess came up behind her and slipped his jacket over her shoulders. She took it without and word and looked up at him. He was staring off into the woods.   
"What are we going to do?" she asked.  
"We are going to talk."  
She glared at him. He ignored the glare and sat down on the hard, cold ground. She reluctantly sank to eye level.   
"Where should we start?" she asked.  
"Why you didn't tell me that you were married," he was looking straight at her and she tried to focus on exactly what reason she could make up for not telling him that would sound reasonable. She shifted uncomfortably.  
"We're in the middle of some highway... maybe we should..."  
"Start somewhere else? All right. Why did you marry Dean?"  
"Now that one isn't any of your business," she snapped, silently thanking anyone from making him switch topics.  
"To bad for me. Tell me."   
"No."  
"Rory, we are desperately lost in the middle of no where. Now, if we both get eaten by bears, won't you be happy that you died with that terrible weight off your chest?" sarcastic voice.  
"It's not a terrible weight on my chest. Why would it be a terrible weight? A weight of any mass, for that matter," on afterthought she barked, "and we aren't going to be eaten by bears,"   
"Okay, we'll starve to death."  
"We're not going to starve."  
"Get run over by a car?"  
"No."  
"Die of boredom?"  
"You have a book in your pocket," she leaned forward and tapped it.  
"Ah-ha. We'll kill each other in hopes of solving all our problems."  
"How would that solve our problems?"  
"You won't have someone breathing down your neck while you read the book. And I have this strange feeling you really want to kill me," she tried to intensify her glare, "yes, for some reason your beautiful eyes seem to be sending that message."  
"You're off topic, Mr. Mariano."  
"This is more fun than talking about serious stuff."  
"Good. Then we can make you suffer."  
"All right. Why'd you marry Dean? Why didn't you tell me you did?"  
She looked away, "I married Dean because I loved him."  
"Right."  
"Please. Like you know anything about how I felt for Dean. You were gone for a year. I did get a chance to change in that time."  
"You told me it wasn't working out."  
"And then it did over the course of the year."  
"Did he cry when you dumped him?"  
"I didn't dump him."  
"You did. And then he panicked and proposed."  
"That is NOT true! We got married during college!"   
He smiled, "so he wanted to keep you to himself, so he proposed, and you were forced to leave your school."  
"Wrong," she lied.  
"Well, I went back to New York and became a reporter."  
"You went back to New York and moved in with a senior platinum blonde."  
He looked at her. She put a hand to her mouth then crumpled into the road.   
"And I spent my whole time there Writing To Rory," he said softly.  
All she wanted to do was melt. She wished fiercely for the powers of the Wicked Witch of the West... and then she wished for rain.  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth Jess."  
"Sorry, schmorry. Why's the question. That's interrogative. Explain. No yes or no."  
"I was afraid that you'd leave," she said quickly and loudly.   
If a bear was to eat me now, I'd be happy I said that.  
He didn't speak for a while, "I wasn't going to."  
"Not until you found out I was married."  
"Maybe it would've been different if you'd told me in the beginning."  
"I'm sorry, okay?"  
"Whatever."  
She frowned, "I can't get two whatever's in one day. That's just not fair!"  
"Well, Rory, a lot of things aren't fair!"  
She stood up and marched to the jeep. She pulled the door open, jumped inside, and slammed it.   
He stared at the door for a while. Then he walked to the jeep and climbed in. She was lying across the back seat, lost in slumber and shivering. He threw a blanket (so conveniently stashed under his seat) over her and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on the seat. He fell asleep during his trials.  
  
She woke up and dropped the corner of blanket she was holding. Wiping her eyes, she rose slowly and hit her head on the jeep.  
"I didn't used to be that tall," she mumbled, falling out of the back seat and wrapping the blanket around her as she stumbled out of the jeep. Jess was up and about, leaning against the back of the car eating a sandwich. He handed her one and she took it and bit out of the side before speaking.  
"Where'd you find this?"  
"Trunk."  
"Not sure I if I should eat it."  
"Give it to me than. I'm famished."  
She woke up and protectively clenched her food, "nuh-uh. The man gives the lady his sandwich, that's what is says in 'Essential Etiquette of Being Lost on the Road with Someone You Are Fighting With.'"  
He stared at her for a second, "I never read it."  
"You should."  
"Since I've never read it I am in no way entitled to forfeit my sandwich."  
"Half of it."  
"No."  
"One third."  
"Doesn't it say somewhere in that book of yours that to get lost on the road with someone you're fighting with is a stupid thing to do because if you're fighting they are most likely not going to readily give up their sandwich to the person they are fighting with?"  
"Ahh. So you're trying to confuse me. You can't confuse a Gilmore."  
"No," he answered before she asked.  
"Can I please have just a bit of your sandwich?"  
"No."  
"Okay, you either give me sandwich or you give me coffee."  
He disappeared into the jeep for a few seconds and came out holding a bottle of something. It was unlabeled and she suspiciously sipped it. Under normal circumstances she would've inquired as to it's contents, but a caffeine-deprived Gilmore is an unpredictable force.  
The taste arrived in her mouth and her deadened taste buds screamed for her to shove the horrendous thing out of her mouth. She most happily spit it out at it's supplier.  
Jess, drenched in orange juice, simply looked at her.   
"What is this?" she demanded, tossing the bottle in his direction and not caring as more splashed out and hit him.   
"It's called juice. You should try it sometime."  
"Juice. Not an experience I care to repeat. I thought I'd made it clear before that..."  
He rolled his eyes and interrupted, "these are the only clothes I have."  
"Punishment for decieve-ment."  
She opened the jeep door and went in, but not before giving him a devilish smile.  
  
The light flickered again. In the woods. He wouldn't have noticed it, maybe it wasn't there... but there it was again.  
"Jess!" Rory called.  
He was embarrassed by how quickly he dashed to her side. But the door was open and he found a hysterical Rory, hands slapping the steering wheel.   
"Jess! We have no food! No food and no gas and no anything! We're going to die!"  
"We're not going to die, Rory. Someone is going to drive along this road and..."  
"We're going to starve! Or get eaten by BEARS! Or kill each other! What if we kill each other and go insane..."  
"Wouldn't it be the other way around?"  
"...and grow our hair down our knees and don't bathe and have black teeth and long yellow fingernails and live in the woods and make a home out of the jeep and become the hermits of nowhereroad!"  
"They could write a book about us."   
"And we'll die and no one will know about us!"  
"Did you have big dreams in mind?"  
"You know I did! This is all..." she looked around and her flashing eyes fell on him, "your fault! It's all your fault!"  
"How so?" he had to keep calm. Maybe he could make Rory shut up if he just kept his head. Two panicking people would not do much good.  
"You made my life go bad!"  
"Your life isn't something that I can just completely alter. It's like milk. If it's left out to long, it's going to go bad eventually."  
"I was fine 'til you came along! I had a nice, steady, routine," she was taking breaths now. Her hands had stopped flailing, "and then you come and decide that my life isn't bad enough. You decide that you have to ruin my marriage."  
"Rory, no one deserves that kind of marriage. You're not making sense."  
"I am too making sense!" she stamped her foot on the jeep floor so hard that the snowman sitting on the dashboard shook, "Dean and I were fine. We weren't star crossed lovers, but we were just fine."  
"You were miserable."  
"I WAS FINE!"  
"Then why did you lie to me?"  
She started crying and made a small choking noise before inching away from him into the passenger seat, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."  
"Rory..."  
She stepped lightly out of the car and walked down the road. He exhaled. She turned around, most likely to give him a 'what have you done to me?' guilt-trip-ing, pitiful look. He didn't give her the opportunity.  
He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the road, then down a slope into the woods.  
  
She didn't bother to ask where they were going. She allowed him to pull her limp body along with him through the trees and branches. She felt numb and barely noticed the stinging slap of the dead twigs.  
He stopped running abruptly at the base of the slope and she fell into his back. He pulled her up by the wrists and placed her in front of him. His chin rested on the top of her head and he placed his hands over her eyes. Her eyelashes brushed against his palms and he began to walk forward, forcing her to stumble blindly and finally cry out in exasperation,  
"Where are we?"  
He removed his hands.  
She caught her breath at the sight before her.  
It was an old cabin, the window panes falling out of the logs and the glass shattered. There was a white sign hanging over the door that read, "Holiday 24/7", and a few christmas lights hung in the windows. The snow wouldn't fall here for another week, so the panes of glass were sprayed with fake snow that was peeling off and had arranged at the base of the cabin in a sloppy pile. Through the windows was a diner, lit with a soft and sickening yellow fluorescent candlelight color. A giant christmas tree sat in the corner, overly decorated with tinsel and lights and ornaments. There were flickering christmas lights hung around and inside the diner, and a huge bunch had been thrown over the "Holiday 24/7" sign stuck in the ground a few feet away.   
Laughter drifted out from inside.  
She looked up at Jess. But he simply gave a mock bow, pushed open the screen door, and pointed a hand inside.  
Rory looked up at him and made a slight sound of protest. He shrugged and walked in, and she dashed in after him before the door swung shut behind them.  
  
The scrambled words of a christmas carol burst in their ears. An old radio seemed to be the source of the noise, and it was blaring out static. The only legible sounds were the words "christmas" and "year".   
They wandered farther into the place that seemed to be a living, breathing, Hallmark card gone bad - Luke's Diner's alter ego. Several plastic Santa's with jiggling bellies adorned the corners and a life-size glass reindeer with a blinking red nose sat in front of the kitchen. Under the tree were gnomes wearing Santa hats and turned up shoes, a present rocking unsteadily in their outstretched hands. Once she got closer, Rory could see each present was wrapped in Happy Birthday wrapping paper.  
She slowly turned to Jess, "this is the most hideous diner I have ever been to."   
She then eagerly sat down at one of the picnic tables.  
"I know," he smiled, "Luke would've had a heart attack at it's pure cheesiness."  
"How did you find this place?" she asked suspiciously.  
"I saw lights from the road and I was sick of being lost," he smiled again and passed the menu from across the table. Red and green with caroling and frightening cabbage patch-like children painted at the top.   
In an instant, two elderly people dressed like elves were at the table. They sang a chorus of "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" and bowed, time enough for the two guests to see that, under the sagging hats, were two women with smiling faces.  
"It truly is, isn't it?" one remarked to the other as soon as they'd finished, "I mean, beginning to look a lot like Christmas." She turned to address Jess and Rory, "the customers start pouring in around this time of year, they won't come when it's not Christmas, they say that it's not genuine enough. Well, Jenny and I decorated this place ourselves, and if it isn't genuine enough for the mess of people that live around here, that's their problem. But you're here, and only at the beginning of winter. You're such darlings. No charge for our first customers of the season!" she cried, clapping her frail hands. Rory couldn't help but smile.  
"Thank you but..." she began to decline, but was interrupted.  
"It's our pleasure, dearie," the other one said, waving off her remark with a toss of her 'beringed' fingers, "we do love seeing young couples. Warms our hearts."  
Neither of them assured Ms. Jenny that she was right.  
But neither of them corrected her.  
After ordering the only seemingly appetizing thing on the menu (two cokes), Rory laid her hand on top of Jess'.  
"Thank you... for this sickening place, and for being here."  
He didn't look at her, "this menu sounds like you cooked it," he remarked as his eyes rapidly scanned the items.  
"Seriously. Thanks."  
He looked up, "you're welcome, Rory."   
The two "elves" began to carol, as Rory Gilmore and Jess Mariano sat across from each other at a picnic table in a deserted diner in a place they were soon to discover the name of.  
And so it was to the tune of "Jingle Bells" that their lives abruptly righted themselves, and to the same tune that they finally - without words - admitted what had been on their minds for a very long time.  
Almost six years, in fact.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chapter Fourteen: Final Answers  
  
Lane Kim ran a finger down the list of guests. The name under maid of honor had been hastily scribbled as "Lorelai Gilmore."  
"Lane, why are you still awake?" Pete groaned, coming down into the kitchen and seeing his fiancé staring at their wedding plans under the dim light of a single lamp, "we're getting married in a week! You can't be staying up this late every night! You'll be falling asleep as you walk down the aisle!"  
"This is important!" she said wearily, "I think..." she hesitated and looked up at Pete, as if she needed an answer from him on whatever was plaguing her.  
"What is it?" he asked, sitting down next to her.   
She stood up and began opening the cupboard doors, standing on her toes to search inside, "have you seen my blue address book? That old one from when I was seventeen with the picture of Eminem on the front?"  
"Uh..." he opened up their freezer and pulled out something, "this one?"  
She snatched it out of his fingers and brushed off ice, not at all caring about it's unusual location. She thumbed through the old pages until she found the number.  
Sitting down at the table, she took their phone and began to dial rapidly. Pete placed a hand on her shoulder, "what is it, Lane?" he inquired groggily.  
"I just..." she smiled as the phone began to ring, "I think that I have the wrong Lorelai Gilmore as my maid of honor."   
To say the least, her dear Pete was confused, "You don't want Lorelai Gilmore? But she's so..."  
"She's just..." her voice faded off as the rings continued. To many rings. What if this wasn't her number any more? The tears returned to her eyes as she saw her best friend standing next to her Frankenstein fiancé, small and forcing a smile. Taking the cellphone Lorelai held out, "so I can talk to you anytime. It has to be on constantly..." Rory had just nodded, but taken it.  
"But you said that she was like your other mother while you were growing up?" Pete was still blabbing. Poor guy never liked it when Lane went into one of her strange Gilmoresque periods of time - not answering questions, doing things that are seemingly out of nowhere, leaving sentences unfinished......  
"Yes. But her daughter..." she had begun to answer but...  
A voice came through on the other end. The same childish light voice that she hadn't heard since the day a few years ago at the bus stop, "Hello?"  
Lane breathed out, "hi. Rory?"  
  
Lorelai entered the diner with the most unusual craving for coffee.   
"LUKE!" she called.  
He didn't appear at the door. She entered anyway and sat at the counter, drumming her fingers until he almost fell down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.  
He went to make coffee and didn't talk until she had downed her first mug, "why so late, Lorelai? Why always so late?"  
"I think I've figured out why I like coffee so much," was her answer.  
"Why?" he asked, yawning.  
"Whenever I want coffee, something wonderful is happening somewhere in the world. Someone is intensely happy and that makes me want coffee. It's a great burden I carry, Luke. You just have to support the happy people in the world. Are you so selfish that you don't want them to be happy - even if it is at an odd hour?"  
"That is one of the most unoriginal excuses you have ever come up with for wanting coffee."  
"Well it's late," she said in defense of herself as he poured her more, "my brilliant mind has not begun it's brilliant thinking yet," she watched him for a moment, "Jess visited me the other day."  
Luke's eyes snapped open, "what?"  
"He borrowed my jeep."   
"To...?"   
"See Rory."  
She never mentioned Rory. Luke's voice softened, "oh. Did you tell him..."  
"About Dean? No."   
"Ah."  
"Ah is right. Now he's going to be miserable and in my carelessness and misery I have made another miserable!"   
"You're miserable?"  
She looked up at him, "aren't you?"  
"Pretty much. Rory made you Lorelai. I think the absence of the Gilmore's with a death wish might actually be making me unhappy. I can still remember every cup of hell I've poured to suit your suicidal cravings."  
She smiled at him and gave a snorted laugh into her coffee, "well, I'll admit that there was something that kept me from jumping off a bridge," he looked at her, "Luke..." she paused for a moment and studied the man who she had known for quite a long time that she loved. He loved her too. The man that kept from ever being in a real relationship except for the strange one she had with him. The relationship they had that was so strange yet perfect. She finished, "...'s coffee."  
"I'm touched," silence, "I actually miss that kid."  
"Suddenly opening the Rory door is opening lots of other doors?"   
"You get to talk about your daughter, I get to talk about my nephew."   
"Shall we cry together over our lost little kidlets?"  
"I just wish..." obviously this conversation was not something Luke found easy, "I wish that... he liked me more," he shrugged, "but I don't care. I didn't love him like you loved Rory."  
"Is that your final answer?" she asked.  
"No," he admitted begrudgingly.  
"He liked you, Luke."  
"Sure."  
She sighed, "I'm not going to continue this, since you're just fishing for sympathy."  
"Lorelai, you know how you always felt you had something in Rory that was always there for you to love and loved you back, even when things weren't exactly jumping on top of tables and tap-dancing?" she bit her lip and nodded. That she missed.  
"The unconditional love."  
"Yea, I guess. I just felt like when I had a family member... someone younger... I might be able to have that someone who does love you and who you can love back because you care about them so much. And I fought for it so hard, but I guess I didn't do it right."  
"He loved you, Luke. But Rory's a girl. Girls are allowed to love that. Bad boys aren't."  
"There were a few times - when we were arguing - that I was actually scared of how much he understood me. I thought maybe that meant something. And when we stopped being mad, I just felt so happy that I had that tiny little fraction of love back in my life. And this sounds so wrong and I am never going to talk when I am half-asleep ever again."   
"I love you, Luke."  
She had always wondered what his reaction to that would be. But what he did now most definitely shocked her the most.  
He smiled.  
And then he opened his mouth to say it back but she interrupted, not sure how ready she was to hear it from him, "coffee! coffee! I think that two people in this world are very happy right now! I need coffee!"  
He refilled the mug, "I wonder who they are."  
  
Jess and Rory's eyes hadn't moved for what seemed like hours. She wanted to stay exactly as she was for a very long time more. This was different then anything. It was like sitting with her mother on the couch, not doing anything but basking in the other's presence. She had never done this with anyone else before. She hadn't thought it possible.   
She wondered what would happen if she kissed him. Was she allowed to kiss him? Was this moment trying to tell her that the love between her and Jess should be the love of a brother and a sister? For with her mom she felt the sweet bonds of sisterhood... she wanted her head to shut up. She didn't care about what was right and wrong. She'd spent to much time in her life debating what the next move would be. She was content now to be with him - not watch or stare or smile at like she would with someone else, just *be* with - in a small diner in the middle of nowhere.   
Her hand was still on top of his. The diner's radiator wasn't working, it seemed, and the only warmth she felt was the air in-between their hands. She didn't mind the cold as long as she had that precious oxegon hovering between her fingers and his.   
And then her phone rang.   
The sound made her jump slightly in her seat. It was coming from the small bag that she always carried - it usually just had the book that she slipped in when she woke up. It had no book now - just the little cellphone that her mother had given her... God knows how long ago. It was always on, but it had never rung before. She'd never even used it before. She'd forgotten a while ago that it was even there. She had notes on her mirror at home to charge it again, but it was only then that she remembered it.   
Jess had raised an eyebrow. A "if you had a cellphone we could've called for help when we were lost" look was being directed at her. But it wasn't smug. It was more of - relief? That she hadn't realized, because then they wouldn't have come here and...  
She grabbed the phone - ringing madly to the tune of "These Lazy Hazy Crazy Days". She gave a hollow laugh. So her mom had been trying to send her a message when she went away, trying to remind of her of that nightmarish festival, trying to make her realize something, or at least rethink her engagement to Bag Boy. How did you feel, asked the therapeutic phone in a sing- song voice, when you saw Jess and Shane? Did Dean really matter to you then? Does he really matter to you now? To late for that. She pushed it against her ear.   
"Hello?"   
"Hi. Rory?"   
The voice was so familiar and it killed Rory that she couldn't remember it. She knew she should remember it. She didn't speak for a moment, and the door finally opened, and the memories flowed out.  
"L-Lane?"  
"Hi."  
"Hi."  
"Hi."  
"Hello."  
"Hello..."  
What was there to say? How are you? The friendship between the two girls had been strong - and then yanked away once Rory got on the bus to the airport... with Dean.   
A tear escaped her eye. Her voice left her and Jess reached across and wrapped his fingers around the phone. Her grip fell away and he spoke - the obvious concern for Rory in his voice - in her place.  
"Hello Lane," the two elves had stopped their caroling to eavesdrop on their customers.   
The surprised voice of the woman in Stars Hollow echoed throughout the silent diner, "who is this?"  
"Guess."   
"Jess?"  
"Yes," Lane didn't speak. Rory wasn't looking in any particular direction. Her eyes stared ahead, unfocused and brimming with tears, at a plastic santa. He tried to end the dear reunion so that he could talk to her, "why did you call?"  
"Well... I was... um..." the other voice in place of Rory's had obviously confused her, "wondering if Rory would like to be my maid of honor?"  
"You're getting married?"   
"Yea."  
Rory snapped out of her trance. All she had been thinking about was how she had forgotten Lane's voice. And now Lane was married and she hadn't hear about it. She had told Lane about her first kiss and they had squealed together - but now she was married - a bit more important than first kiss - and she didn't know about it.  
"When?" he was asking.  
"Next Sunday."  
"When should we be there?"  
Rory looked up at him. She managed a smile.   
"If you could be here in... about... two days?"  
"Sure, we'll be there," he said quickly, "g-"  
"Okay..." the disappointment in her voice made his worry for Rory dim for a second.  
"Look, Lane, Rory's just not... feeling well. She'll call you tomorrow and you two can have your ya ya's."  
"all right," that satisfied her, "goodbye Jess."   
"Bye."  
He handed the phone to Rory and she looked up. He looked at her. She didn't take the phone. To much looking. He wanted to talk to her but still, Rory and Jess just looked at each other. Forgiveness wasn't necessary right now. The precious air had flown away way Rory's hand had flown from Jess to her bag. The hardest thing, it seemed, was to start a conversation.  
"So, where are we going to go from here?" Jess ignored the question at first. She had said we. Like it's natural. Like we exists now.  
"I don't know," he quickly tried to cover up the pure lameness of that, "Stars Hollow?"   
Rory caught her breath, "I don't know if I want to. I haven't been there in so long and I don't know how my mother would react to seeing me without Dean and I haven't spoken to anyone there in awhile and I'm afraid that she won't love me anymore," it came out quickly.   
He almost laughed. The idea of the two Gilmore's not being the most linked creatures on the earth, the idea of Lorelai not being as protective and loving as a lioness mother, the idea of Rory actually being able to escape their strange mother/daughter bond... that was lost on him. But Rory was actually crying - again.   
She was crying and it tore him apart. His body had been scattered along the road from Salsville to Holiday 24/7 with her guilt-wrenching, soul-tearing tears.   
But in a way her tears comforted him. It meant that he could jump through that open window and actually be able to hold her.   
And that's what he did, "Rory, Lane wants you to be her maid of honor. I think that you should go. This means a lot to Lane."  
Of course, just as she had turned to cry into his jacket, her cellphone rang again.   
Honestly, it didn't shake him in the least. Fate had been against the idea of him and Rory for a long time. But who said Fate knew anything about anyone?   
Rory leaned against him as she spoke. He pulled her close and smiled out into the woods, and at all the stupid hollow plastic Santa's with beanbag stomachs. Rory was his at this perfect perfect moment. And no matter how much destiny and the all-powerful forces of the universe tried to rip her away, he was going to hold on.  
"Hello..." Rory's expression turned from that delicate, tired half-smile that had appeared when she let herself fall away from her "old life" into a mix of delight and shock,   
"Lane?"  
"Yes, it's me again. Rory, I miss you so much and you are NOT going to get away with not talking to me for a whole day! And where are you? And how are things? And why did Jess answer the phone? And why..."  
He kissed the top of her head. And she tilted her face up and smiled. So it was Lane and two diner owners who had to maintain respectful silence for a minute while Rory and Jess had their third yet most official kiss.  
  
The divorce of Rory Gilmore and Dean Forrester went quietly. Rory only had to see Dean once or twice, and every time she refused to let Jess stand behind her. She said it would be like rubbing it in that she had left him and that he wasn't good enough and that she thought Jess was better. For, she had told Jess, even though he was a strong factor in their third breakup, there were many other reasons that she and Dean were never going to work. And she was not going to flaunt all of them in his face.  
Rory returned to Stars Hollow on the arm of one of the only deliliquent's the small town had ever known. It remained unchanged. Lane's was the perfect wedding. And the reunion of the Gilmore's was - to sum it up while leaving out many screams and laughs and tears - heartwarming. The most perfect Disney scene to end a movie.   
Except that was not the end.  
  
*~*~*~  
  
For the story I have told you, oh reader that will never be, is mainly about me. Though I'll admit that I can never hope to be as important in Rory's life as Lorelai, I am quite a prominent figure. The loud whispers that had been centered around the relationship of the two town bookworms had been on hold for five years. Once Rory was seen standing next to me, it was if we'd never left. The blood of the gossip topic began circulating and Rory was left to smile at me sideways.   
Thank God the Stars Hollow Folk had some respect. The Bag Boy subject was not mentioned in front of Rory, save for some midnight talks between the mother and daughter (on which I did not eavesdrop, but simply know of because... well, it's really none of your business).   
I visited Luke a day after Lane's wedding. I'll admit mine were not the most honorable intentions - I needed a place to sleep and I was basically going to beg it from him. But he offered it to me almost right away. I guess I wasn't as subtle as I thought. Or maybe it's just some family thing. I haven't had to much of a family and I guess I wasn't sure exactly what the strange relationship Luke and I had could be defined as. Normal? Abnormal? I find it doesn't matter. We are both fine with it.   
I loved Rory about a day into knowing her. And I love her more today. Thank God (again) that no one will ever read this, as it would not be good for my aging heart if I knew such junk from me was loose in the general public.   
I see her every day. Every day I am the one who gets to brush her hair out of her face and kiss her.   
But still I end every night by Writing To Rory, while she sleeps about two feet away from my desk.  
  
  
  
  
THE END 


End file.
